On Sunday (January 5), the Australian cricket team under Pat Cummins’s captaincy concluded their 10-year drought by clinching the high-profile five-match test series against India with a 3-1 scoreline and claiming the championship of the Border Gavaskar Trophy (BGT) 2024-25.
A 6-wicket victory in the fifth test at Sydney Cricket Ground (SCG) ended Team India’s decade of dominance and destroyed the two-time finalist’s chances of qualifying for the World Test Championship (WTC) 2025 final.
It is confirmed that the defending champions with 130 points and 63.73 PCT secure their second position on the points table and will compete against South Africa in the WTC 2025 final at Lord’s Cricket Ground from June 11 to June 15.
The Pink test at the SCG has been an edge-of-the-seat thriller. India seemed to be in full control despite gaining the lead by a small margin of 4 runs after the Aussies were bowled out for 181 in 51 overs of their first innings.
In contrast, the second innings for Team India turned out to be completely disastrous, which favored the Aussies conveniently chasing the target of 162 for a loss of 4 wickets in 27 overs due to these reasons:
- Lack of contribution from the batting line-up apart from Rishabh Pant’s quickfire 61 runs from 33 balls (including 6 fours and 4 sixes).
- Stand-in-captain and India’s core pacer Jasprit Bumrah’s back spams restricted his bowling abilities, which left the entire bowling lineup clueless.
- An unbroken 58-run partnership for the 5th wicket between Travis Head and the debutant Beau Webster in a crucial run-chase.
In addition, let’s take a closer look at India’s blunders in BGT 2024-25 that caused the Aussies to bounce back by securing consecutive wins in Adelaide, Melbourne, and Sydney Test.
5 Embarrassing Errors from Team India that Allowed Australia to Win Border Gavaskar Trophy After 10 Years
Australians took advantage of these blunders that India committed after their 295-run victory in the Perth Test:
1. Batting Line-up Failure:
The Australian bowlers conveniently dismantled India’s batting line-up as they were able to cross the 200-run mark only in 3 out of 10 innings played and a 300-run mark only once.
Yashasvi Jaiswal (391 runs in 10 innings), Nitish Reddy (298 runs in 9 innings) and KL Rahul (276 runs in 5 innings) were the only top three run scorers for the visiting side. While experienced batters like Virat Kohli (190 runs in 9 innings) and Rohit Sharma (31 runs in 5 innings) failed to deliver consistent performances.
2. Too Much Dependence and Workload on Bumrah:
Jasprit Bumrah has been the lone champion for India throughout the BGT against Australia. The 31-year-old pacer bagged 32 wickets in 5 matches. But, over-dependence on him caused a back injury that caused him to miss the opportunity to bowl in the 2nd innings of the SCG test.
Although his fellow pacers Prasidh Krishna (3-42 in 15 overs) and Mohammed Siraj (3-51 in 16 overs) gave a tough fight against the Aussies in the fifth test, there wasn’t any plan B for Bumrah’s absence. While Akash Deep and Harshit Rana’s spell proved to be ineffective against the Aussie batters, having a lone quality pacer wouldn’t help India beat Australia in their backyard.
3. Playing XI Selections which led to the unsuccessful outcome:
These are the selection errors that favored the Aussies to dominate against India’s weak playing XI:
| Venue | Prioritized Selection in Playing XI | Reason | Wrong Pick |
| Adelaide (2nd Test) | Akash Deep | Ideal option for Pace bowler to bowl under lights | Harshit Rana |
| Melbourne (4th Test) | Inclusion of another full-time batter (Sarfaraz Khan or Dhruv Jurel) | Easy to compile runs on a batting-friendly track | Washington Sundar |
| Sydney (5th Test) | Inclusion of an Additional Pacer to strengthen the bowling line-up (or) Specialist Batter to protect the batting line-up | No Requirement for two spinners on a grassy pitch | Two spin bowling all-rounders included (Ravindra Jadeja and Washington Sundar) |
4. Deserving Talents Not Given a Chance:
Even though Sarfaraz Khan and Dhruv Jurel played impactful knocks for India in the home-test series in 2024, they were benched throughout the series. Perhaps, their inclusion could have helped add some runs on the board as well as balanced the team’s innings.
Despite Shubman Gill’s poor form, he was allowed to play 3 matches but managed to score just 93 runs in 5 innings of the series. In comparison, Jurel was sidelined only for the reason of not performing well in the Perth Test.
5. Virat Kohli’s Predictable Nature of Dismissals:
Virat Kohli’s weakness has been easily noticeable to Australian bowlers in such a way that he became prey to the caught-out dismissals behind the wicket in 8 out of 9 innings.
Updated WTC 2023-25 Points Table After BGT 2024-25
These are the teams ranking in the first five positions in the second cycle of the WTC points table after the conclusion of BGT 2024-25:
| S.No | Teams | Matches Played | Won | Loss | Draw | Points | PCT |
| 1. | South Africa (Q) | 11 | 7 | 3 | 1 | 88 | 66.67 |
| 2. | Australia (Q) | 17 | 11 | 4 | 2 | 130 | 63.73 |
| 3. | India (E) | 19 | 9 | 8 | 2 | 114 | 50.50 |
| 4. | New Zealand (E) | 14 | 7 | 7 | 0 | 81 | 48.21 |
| 5. | Sri Lanka (E) | 11 | 5 | 6 | 0 | 60 | 45.45 |
Note: Here “Q” means the teams have been qualified for the WTC 2025 final and “E” indicates their elimination.
Final Opinion:
Starting the Border Gavaskar Trophy (BGT) 2024-25 from 1-0 down in the Perth Test to a sensational 3-1 victory, Cummins, and his men deserve special applause for making a stunning comeback against the visitors.
Although the Aussies are left with the 2-match test series against Sri Lanka to complete the ongoing WTC cycle, a win or loss wouldn’t make any difference as they have already qualified for their second consecutive final securing a 60+ PCT.