Border-Gavaskar Trophy 2023: India win 4th successive series as Australia hold on for tame draw in Ahmedabad

While Australia dropped anchor to play out a draw with India in Ahmedabad in the final Test of the 2023 Border-Gavaskar Trophy, New Zealand won a last-ball thriller against Sri Lanka.

In Christchurch. New Zealand’s 2-wicket win helped India secure their second successive World Test Championship final and from thereon, you could sense two teams involved in high-octane cricket for the last one month, were just going through the motions in Ahmedabad.

Over four weeks of intense Test cricket brought India and Australia to the series finale with hopes of a 3-1 finish for the hosts. But that did not happen thanks to the pitch which had little help for bowlers and the resolute spirits of the Australian batters. A 3-1 win for India in the 2023 BGT would have taken any other result elsewhere out of the equation and taken them to the WTC final; however, it was just as well for India that Kane Williamson played one of the finest Test innings in recent times to deny Sri Lanka a shot.

Ahmedabad offered the best pitch of the series between India and Australia and it produced some attritional cricket. India had won in Nagpur and Delhi to take a 2-0 lead on pitches that drew severe criticism from the Australian media. Why? That was anybody’s guess.

Rohit Sharma scored a classy hundred in the first Test and Axar Patel was the standout batter in the first half of the series. Indore provided a raging turner but India were beaten in their own game. Even as Rohit Sharma said the hosts were just playing to their strengths, the final pitch for the series turned out to be a blessing for batters after three frenetic matches where spinners dominated with vicious turn and uneven bounce.

It was an emphatic fightback by Australia under Steve Smith’s cunning leadership. After the win in Indore, they posted a daunting 480 and then for large periods of the Indian innings, kept the hosts quiet. Smith often packed the leg-side and his bowlers responded with tight lines, hardly allowing the Indian batters to race away with the game on a flat surface.

Virat Kohli’s genius, Shubman Gill’s guts, Cheteshwar Pujara’s patience and Axar Patel’s ability to hold his own with the bat helped India eventually take a healthy lead but by then, you could sense that there would no winners in the Test. The pitch did not deteriorate as one would expect on the final day of a Test match in Asia and all the Aussies had to do was block and survive in less than challenging conditions.

R Ashwin, easily the best bowler of the match, toiled away magnificently but he was only rewarded with the wicket of Matthew Kuhnemann in the second innings after finishing with 6 for 91 in the first. Travis Head and Marnus Labuschagne were at the crease together when Australia wrapped up a 9-wicket win in Indore last week and in Ahmedabad, the duo joined forces well aware that Usman Khawaja, the leading run-scorer of the series, was not available to bat after injuring his knee during a valiant effort on the field on Sunday.

Australia’s decision to drop Travis Head for the first Test in Nagpur stirred up a controversy and triggered a series of questions. After a meek batting display in the series opener, Head was eventually brought back into the playing XI but before Monday, he did not go past 50 in 5 innings. On a benign pitch with the bowlers tiring, Head was on course for a hundred but got beaten by an Axar Patel delivery which pitched on the rough outside the off-stump. A crestfallen Head had to walk back for 90.

Axar Patel could have also had Steve Smith for a duck minutes later but KS Bharat dropped a big deviation off the bat and Australia went to tea at a comfortable at 158 for 2. The players came out for the final session of the series and the game dragged on for about 40 minutes before they shook hands to signal a draw.

Questions were asked after India’s batting capitulation in Indore but their batsmen quickly made amends in better conditions in Ahmedabad. Virat Kohli had not scored a Test hundred since November 2019 – here, he dug in and cut down any kind of risks to hit his career-best score against Australia. Kohli was in sight of a double hundred but Shreyas Iyer was out with an injury, R Ashwin played a poor shot and after Umesh Yadav’s run-out, the Indian batting maestro did not show a lot of faith in Mohammed Shami to take strike. That 186, though, will remain forever in the annals of cricket as one of Virat Kohli’s finest Test knocks, never mind the double hundred.

Australia’s winning probabilities were ended by India even before the third innings. Australia ended India’s hopes of a win with some gutsy batting on the final day. A draw was always on the cards but what could not be denied was a fourth successive series win for India and their continued hold over the Border-Gavaskar Trophy. Australia had last won a series against India in 2014-15 and India have been on a winning spree since: 2017, 2018-19, 2020-21 and 2023. What more, they will now face off in the final of the World Test Championship final in less than 3 months on neutral territory. That should be another classic.