Another highly proficient performance in the field brought Australia their fifteenth Test victory in succession on Saturday afternoon when they beat India here at the MCG by 337 runs. If they win the second 3 mobile Test, which starts in Sydney on Wednesday, they will equal the record set by Steve Waugh’s side in 2001.

In their defence, India came into the match even more underprepared than England had been before the first Test in Brisbane 13 months ago. Anil Kumble’s admission that one three-day warm-up match was “not enough” was obvious to all bar the Board of Control for Cricket in India, which should take some responsibility for this crushing defeat. “It hurts, not just as an individual but also as a team, that we were not able to put up a better fight,” the India captain said.

Australia’s bowling and outcricket was as suffocating as the heat, which reached 40C (104F). It was so hot that Sourav Ganguly had to lie flat on his back for an unscheduled breather to recover midway through his innings. The superfit Australians did not seem unduly bothered, however, bowling out their opponents by 4.30pm to record their ninth successive Test win at the MCG.

Ricky Ponting was imaginatively proactive with his field placings. All the bowlers played their part, as did Adam Gilchrist, who, wearing a special pair of pink wicketkeeping gloves for this match to publicise breast cancer awareness, went past Ian Healy’s national record. A total of eight catches took him to 399 Test victims. Gilchrist admitted that he had suffered from self-doubt after the 2005 Ashes series when “I didn’t keep well at all, especially at Old Trafford”. England may not be too pleased to hear that Gilchrist and Matthew Hayden are keen to play in the 2009 Ashes series.

Despite a slow, low drop-in pitch that Ponting compared to those more commonly found in the sub-continent, India did not manage a single partnership of note. Rahul Dravid resisted for 114 balls for his 16 before Andrew Symonds beat him with an off break that turned sharply.

Brad Hogg underlined his value by dismissing Ganguly for the second time in the match, having removed Yuvraj Singh with a fine flipper. Stuart Clark enhanced his reputation as the most miserly fast bowler in Test cricket, as well as taking the important wicket of V. V. S. Laxman, caught at short cover.

Symonds, meanwhile, has stated his extreme reluctance to tour Pakistan with Australia in March without an improvement in security after the assassination last week of Benazir Bhutto. “There is obviously huge concern in the side,” he said. “Pakistan is not a place you want to be right now and I’m not going to put myself in a situation where I can be harmed.”

The Pakistan Cricket Board announced over the weekend that it is not prepared to move the forthcoming Test series to a neutral country, as it did in 2002-03. Cricket Australia will make a decision whether to tour after it sends a security delegation to Pakistan in February.

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