It was Ponting’s worst hour as captain and he may well pay heavily for it. Sadly, it gave unnecessary credence to match-fixing murmurs that never seem to get silenced for good in India anymore. This was the closest Australia came to having eyebrows being raised in their direction (much like Prabhakar and Mongia shutting down shop in an Indian ODI in the mid-1990s), and it doesn’t augur well for test cricket in general, whether or not there is substance in the suspicions.

The lackluster audience response to the series, the first lukewarm response in a long time from these quarters, is a cause of even greater worry. Worryingly, all four test venues were poorly attended. Maybe IPL and T20 cricket in general have begun to lower attention spans, maybe the economic meltdown’s impending doom kept some people away but more than anything else, it is the pitches. There is no doubt that the batsman-friendly wickets have taken the edge off contests for a couple of Indian seasons now. The warnings were not heeded, and the cricket public has finally begun to react to dull three innings draws in the only way the authorities will perhaps respond to. It is terrible when winning the toss leads to a palpable advantage acknowledged by both sides. How different this is from the 2001 series when all three tests were won by the side that lost the toss and chased.

But the world has changed a lot in the last seven years and the manifestations are there to see in many ways. An utter disregard for the ordinary, humble cricket fan (which, the powers-to-be have forgotten, is the vast majority) is evident in the high ticket prices and the bizarre arrangements in some venues where you could only purchase a 5-day ticket rather than a day at a time (let alone the lack of special transport facilities to the venue, which seemed to invite car owners more than the bus travelers). Most shockingly, for the first time in four decades of test cricket in India, there was no ball-by-ball radio commentary for a home series! This is what abject commercialism and ugly greed can reduce the world to. The breakdown of economic systems that have encouraged this may be the talking point of today but it doesn’t seem to have put any sense in people who run cricket in India. Given the mindset of these powerful and the rich (who run Indian cricket) perhaps the appreciation of test cricket is not on their agenda. How much irreversible damage will they do?

It is perhaps unfair to compare this series with that of 2001. Australia was a much better side than the current one and besides the sparkling talents, there was a drive and boldness to the team that brought out the best in their opponents led by Sourav Ganguly. That is the series that made Sourav the captain and the new-age Indian team. A team that perhaps never touched the full extent of its potential.

However, this new Indian team shows signs of doing so. All said and done, it was a superb team effort; everyone contributed, especially the bowlers, and that too the faster ones. In a home series triumph, this is a first in Indian cricket history, and a very promising one.

In Dhoni, they appear to have a captain who has a gritty intensity when on duty and the lightness of one who just participated in a mere sport off duty. It is a rare balance and might just be the secret of Dhoni’s success. That lightness of touch is not a quality the last four Indian captains had – not Tendulkar, Dravid or Kumble, not even Ganguly. Ganguly’s statement – that the “fab four” (Tendulkar, Dravid, Ganguly, Laxman) “changed the face of Indian Cricket forever” proves this. It is a hyperbolic statement – filled with hubris. He seems to have forgotten about 1971 (test series wins in West Indies and England), 1983 (Prudential World Cup) and 1985 (World Championship of Cricket) and the test series win in England in 1986 – those teams were no pushovers. Yes, Indian cricket lost its way in the 1990s in the Azharuddin era (and later under Tendulkar), and Ganguly helped inject pride and confidence in a youthful team, but to describe it in those kind of terms is as absurd as bracketing Ganguly with Bradman because they both scored ducks in their last test innings!

No doubt, there was considerable progress under the “fab five” (you can’t keep Kumble out of this lot), even test wins abroad but hardly any series wins (wins in West Indies and England against weakened sides finally came in 2007), otherwise a lot of the problems of the 1990s were perpetuated (including the politics and intrigue that finally claimed Ganguly). If anything, under Dhoni, the results have been more spectacular and the future appears more promising.

Dravid’s crisis of form has all but consumed him but he might get more space than he would have if the team had not been doing so well. Perhaps he will square off against England after all a month from now, and unless he has it in him to overcome his demons by then, we could be bidding goodbye to an even greater player next month. With perhaps the most tragic fading off from the scene in many, many years.

India will be hard pressed to find a middle order as accomplished as these four in their pomp (which only consistently fired together in Australia 2003-04) and they will be missed. For now, Ganguly will be missed, both for his steely grit and his off-side grace. But the future of Indian cricket looks brighter than in any other previous era.

There is a long way to go still. It is ludicrous to say that India is now the world’s best test side. South Africa and Sri Lanka will have something to say about that, as will England. Hell, as will Australia. India has still to win a series in South Africa and Sri Lanka and New Zealand…and er…Australia. Minor detail, which the Glorious Indian Media is typically glossing over.

So, a good victory for India, and let us celebrate somewhat but not too much. Given their relative strengths, England might actually provide more competition to India than Australia did this time – which would only lead to better cricket. And hopefully, a larger audience.