Australia grinds out low-scoring win in final test against India
The Aussies reclaimed the Border-Gavaskar Trophy for the first time in over a decade in a type of test that hasn’t been seen in Sydney for more than 130 years.
IMAGE: Australian players celebrate after winning the Border-Gavaskar Trophy (Getty Images)
Australia (181 & 4/162) defeated India (185 & 157) in the fifth and final match of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy by six wickets yesterday on the back of Scott Boland’s maiden 10-wicket haul in Test cricket.
Boland took 4/31 in the first innings in Sydney and backed it up with 6/45 in the second, dismissing Yashasvi Jaiswal, Virat Kohli, and Nitish Kumar Reddy in both innings – and was deservedly named the player of the match for his efforts.
Indian bowling sensation Jasprit Bumrah, who took 32 wickets – the most by an Indian over the course of a test series in Australia – was duly named player of the series.
The three-day turnaround between the Melbourne and Sydney tests may have contributed to Bumrah’s injury and subsequent inability to bowl in Australia’s final innings. India have now won just three of 20 back-to-back tests with such a short turnaround after Australia wins the previous test.
The 3-1 series victory was the first time the Australians had beaten India in a test series since 2014/15, where they won in Adelaide and Brisbane before playing out draws in Melbourne and Sydney to take the four-match series 2-0.
Only Nathan Lyon, Mitchell Starc, and Steven Smith played in both that and the current series, meaning none of the remaining players had experienced a series victory over India before.
The state of the SCG pitch was heavily criticised, with Sunil Gavaskar not holding back when sharing his thoughts.
“When I saw the pitch I did say the cows could have gone and grazed on it,” the Indian legend said on ABC Radio.
“This is not the ideal Test match pitch that you want because you want it to go into a fourth or the fifth day.”
Usman Khawaja was similarly critical, telling the ABC that the wicket was a “stinker”.
The nature of the pitch made batting quite difficult, with only five players scoring more than 30: Rishab Pant (40 off 98 in the first innings and 61 off 33 in the second), Smith (33 from 57 in the first), Beau Webster (57 from 105 in the first and 39* from 34 in the second), Khawaja (41 from 44 in the second), and Travis Head (34* from 38 in the second).
In addition, neither team scored more than 185 in any of the four innings.
The back-and-forth contest was the 39th test match where all four innings ended in scores under 200, the first since India defeated South Africa in Cape Town in January 2024.
It was the first test with four sub-200 scores to occur at the SCG since February 1888, when England (113 & 137) defeated Australia (42 & 82) by 126 runs. This is surprising, given three of the first four sub-200 tests occurred at the SCG.
Australia’s win moves them to 3-0 in sub-200 tests against India, having won the previous two tests in 1956 and 2023 by 94 runs and 9 wickets, respectively. The Aussies are 7-9 in all other sub-200 tests.
The win also secures Australia’s spot in the ICC World Test Championship Final, where they will play South Africa at Lord’s in June – provided they are not penalised for slow over rates in Sydney or their two final tests of the current WTC cycle.
The Australians travel to Sri Lanka later this month for two tests and a solitary ODI before the ICC Champion’s Trophy in Pakistan and the United Arab Emirates.
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