Former Australian coach John Buchanan admitted that the follow-on decision in the 2001 Eden Gardens, Kolkata Test against India was one of his poorest. After India was bowled out for 171 runs in the first innings in response to Australia’s score of 445, Steve Waugh’s team decided to enforce the follow-on.
However, India bounced back in style in the second innings, with VVS Laxman and Rahul Dravid scoring 281 and 180 respectively. The pair added a gargantuan alliance of 378, and India posted a huge score of 657 runs on the board.
Eventually, Australia suffered a huge loss of 171 runs after they were skittled out for 212, with Harbhajan Singh being the chief destroyer with six scalps in the second innings.
“I regard it as one of my poorest decisions as a coach, but it was not just about enforcing the follow-on. The game was set up nicely, and we had a big lead (274 runs). My job was not to get caught up in the emotion of what was going on the field. But I did,” John Buchanan said on Sportstar.
“As the players walked in, my job was to make them sit down quickly and say what our options were. I think they still would have gone there (to enforce the follow-on), but I didn’t take the time to get them to think that if we had batted, we would have batted India out of the game. Our objective was to go there to win the series. But we enforced the follow-on, and the rest is history [India clinched the series 2-1 with a win in Chennai],” added Buchanan.
The Australian coach said Indian cricket is heading in the right direction after Suryakumar Yadav’s team won the T20 World Cup.
̆On India’s T20 World Cup triumph, he remarked, “My overall view on Indian cricket is that it’s heading in the direction where you would expect it to be. It’s a powerhouse of world cricket. Simply because there is so much talent in this country, and the competition to get into the national team is very, very high. Therefore, the players, who are presumably selected on merit and graduate, fit pretty well to play at that level. And I think you’re beginning to see that with the win the other day.”
Indian players will next participate in IPL 2026.
