4 reasons to cherish India's series victory in Australia

#1 The fast bowling

Australia v India - 4th Test: Day 4

We can argue that this was the weakest Australian team in memory and that previous Indian teams would have also defeated them. We can maybe even say that past teams would have done better in England or South Africa.

Maybe the batting would have, but would have they have won more matches? Probably not. The biggest reason behind India's victory was the sensational fast bowling attack, something India has not had before - at least not of this quality.

In both England and South Africa, India regularly managed to take 20 wickets. That was probably the biggest reason why fans were optimistic about this team's chances abroad.

Despite the impressive performances of the bowlers on the last two tours, there were doubts about how they would perform on the relatively flatter pitches of Australia. However, this group of bowlers proved why they are the arguably the best group India has ever produced, and did plenty of damage on Australian soil.

Over the four Tests, no Australian player got a century, which is an extremely rare occurrence for them on home soil.

While Jasprit Bumrah stole the show with an astonishing 21 wickets in four games, both Ishant Sharma and Mohammed Shami also contributed immensely with 11 and 16 wickets respectively. While the wickets show their statistical contribution, the most important part was the trouble they caused the Australian batsmen.

All three of them extracted maximum possible swing and bounce from the wicket, and made life extremely difficult for the Australian batters.

Ultimately, this was only a culmination of a whole year of great work. In 2018 Indian pacers took 179 wickets, which is the highest ever in a calendar year by an Indian team. They broke the previous record of 125 wickets by a significant margin.

They also managed the best strike rates and averages ever for an Indian team. All three of Bumrah, Ishant and Shami took more than 40 wickets in the year.

Both in quality and depth, the current bowling attack stands out from any the country has seen before. The above-mentioned trio along with Bhuvneswar Kumar and Umesh Yadav form an impeccable attack.

For Indian fans who have grown up watching mediocre fast bowling for ages, these performances were almost a dream come true.