Adam Gilchrist has achieved what his much-fancied predecessors like Mark Taylor and Steve Waugh had failed at. Australia, under their stand-in skipper, scored a dominating victory over India at Nagpur to register their first Test series victory in India after 35 long years.

It was another shabby display by the Indian batsmen who fell like ninepins in both innings and plunged India into another humiliating defeat. A lot has been written about the Nagpur pitch suiting the visitors. And it was proved quite true by the superb display of Jason Gillespie who ended with 9 wickets for the match. He was ably supported by Glenn McGrath who playing in his 100th Test was mean as ever.
 

But it was the batsmen who set up the game for Australia with their attacking play on Day one. The visitors after winning yet another toss were given a good start by the trusted opening pair of Hayden and Langer once again. Then the hero of the Chennai Test, Damien Martyn, put the Indian bowling to the sword. Martyn continued from where he left off at Chennai and brought up yet another century on the sub-continent. The Aussie middle order batsman never looked under any trouble enroute to his second successive century of the series. He then followed it up with a 97 in the 2nd essay to pile on the agony for the Indian bowlers. The Test also saw the return to form of vice-captain Darren Lehmann. The Aussie left-hander proved why he is considered as a great player of spin manoeuvring the spinners to all parts of the ground never allowing them to settle.

If there were not enough worry for the Indians, Clarke came in and played a gem of an innings. His 91 in the first innings was full of authoritative strokes and reiterated his status as an upcoming superstar. The Indian bowlers toiled hard and managed to restrict Australia to under 400- a good psychological boost. The few positives to come out for India from this Test were undoubtedly in the bowling department. Zaheer Khan slowly but surely is coming into his own and unless another injury comes his way, he should be an important weapon in the Indian armoury for the forthcoming games. Murali Karthik, who made a comeback after Harbhajan Singh pulled out of the game due to viral fever, was also impressive. He picked up five scalps in the game and also managed to trouble a few of the Aussie batsmen.

It was the batting though which cost India the game once again. Only Mohammed Kaif and Virender Sehwag managed to surpass 50 plus scores. All the other batsmen looked like fish out of water on a pitch assisting the Aussie pacemen. Glenn McGrath and co used their height to great effect to extract maximum bounce from the grassy Nagpur track and put the Indian batsmen under pressure. Aakash Chopra, who replaced Yuvraj Singh as opener, failed to make use of his opportunity falling without reaching double figures in both innings. It was always going to be difficult for the middle-order to handle the new ball. And even 'The Wall' Rahul Dravid failed to make any substantial contribution when India needed them so dearly while as expected, Tendulkar struggled in his comeback game. VVS Laxman, of whom so much was expected at the start of the series, once again failed to make any impact on the match falling to loose strokes in both innings.

Parthiv Patel batted doggedly in the second innings. But it will be quite a surprise to see him behind the stumps at Mumbai after another horror show behind the wickets. It's time India starts hunting for another wicket keeper and let Patel hone his skills in domestic cricket.

The Nagpur Test was really a tale of two batting units. One oozing with confidence and scoring runs at will and another struggling despite having some of the best talent in the world. It would be fair to say that in the end, Australia were the more dominant of the two teams and deserved the victory. Even though the Indian bowlers put up a better show than their batsmen, the difference in quality of the two sides was pretty much evident. While Zaheer Khan was impressive, he lacked the consistency of McGrath and Gillespie and let the batsmen of the hook far too often thus taking off the pressure on them. And he also did not have much support from Agarkar who had a pretty forgettable game with the ball.

With the victory, Australia have now conquered what Steve Waugh had termed as the 'Final Frontier'. And the game at Mumbai will only be a mere formality. But the champion side that Australia are, they would like to wrap up the series with yet another massive victory. For India, it's time to pull up their socks and deliver before too long. The series is gone but there is a lot of pride to play for and India must try and finish of the series on a positive note. A consolation win at Mumbai will not make any difference to the series result but it would be a good psychological high going into another tough series against South Africa.