The A to Z of the Border-Gavaskar series

In case you somehow missed it, India have just pulled off one of their greatest series wins of all time to retain the Border-Gavaskar Trophy, while Australia have been left licking their wounds and wondering just what happened.

After confidently taking a 1-0 lead in Adelaide, the Australians ultimately folded when the chips were down to lose the four-Test series 2-1.

With the dust beginning to settle, victory parties continuing to rage across India and Australian mobs howling down Tim Paine and the domestic team, here’s a quick A to Z guide of what just happened.

Adelaide
The pink-ball Test, and everything went according to plan for Australia despite the absence of their first-choice opening bats, David Warner and Will Pucovski. It was all over in three days thanks to a demolition job of the Indians by Australian fast bowlers Pat Cummins, Josh Hazlewood and Mitch Starc. India were rolled for just 36 in their second innings and Australia were at very short odds for a series clean sweep. What could go wrong?

Brisbane
The fourth and final Test at Australia’s fortress, the Gabba, and what a game it was. With the series tied up at one-all, every result was still on the table with under three hours to play – until Australia blinked first and Rishabh Pant won the game and the series for India.

(Photo by Patrick Hamilton/AFP via Getty Images)

Cheteshwar Pujara
Simply a batsman like no other in world cricket. He’s far from exciting to watch but has a great defence and can concentrate for hours on end. He has courage to go with it and is prepared to take blows on the body rather than surrender his wicket. He batted for 205 minutes in the second innings in Sydney to save the Test for India and for 314 minutes in the second innings in Brisbane to blunt the Australian bowling attack and set up the series win. Every team could use a Pujara.

Decision review system
It’s high time someone reviewed the review system. The DRS was introduced in an attempt to eliminate ‘howlers’ – that is, rubbish decisions by the umpire – but despite the investment in technology, it doesn’t appear to have the confidence of either the players or the fans.

Endangered species
With Joe Burns apparently gone from the Australian team and unlikely to make his way back, the selection focus will now shift to endangered batsmen Matthew Wade and Travis Head. Both made starts on occasions but their mode of dismissal at key moments in the game left a lot to be desired. Probably the only thing that might save their careers in the short term will be a reluctance to take any more debutants into the upcoming series with South Africa.

Travis Head (Photo by Ryan Pierse/Getty Images)

Fox commentary
With all of the money invested by Fox Sports in their cricket coverage, you’d have thought it’d be someone’s job to actually listen to it, just like we have to, for quality control purposes. If they had done, we wouldn’t have been subjected to either Mark Howard or Shane Warne. I cannot get around Howard, while Warne is rapidly becoming cricket’s commentary’s answer to Nine’s Gus Gould but with a funny hat.

Gill, Shubman
India have unearthed a number of good players on this tour and none better than 21-year-old opening bat Shubman Gill. He made his Test debut in Melbourne and finished the series with 259 runs at an average of 51.8. He looks the goods and isn’t afraid to take the attack up to the bowling when required.

Hazlewood, Josh
The Hoff’s accurate bowling kept Australia in the game throughout the series, and he should be happy with his performance. Taking 17 wickets at 19.35 is a terrific result in any four-match series, but Australia need to find the right bowling combination to support both him and Pat Cummins in the future.

Josh Hazlewood (Photo by Saeed Khan/AFP via Getty Images)

Injuries
It’s hard to recall a four-test series where so many players went down injured. India used 20 players across the four Tests and only Prithvi Shaw was replaced due to poor form, with Kohli of course unavailable after the first Test. Warner played injured for Australia and Pucovski missed the fourth Test after suffering a shoulder injury in Sydney.

Joe Burns
Burns was presumably selected at the beginning of the series only due to the unavailability of both David Warner and Will Pucovski for the first two Tests. Despite a half-century in the second innings in Adelaide he looked like a player all at sea and struggling for form. We probably won’t see him wearing the baggy green again anytime soon.

King Kohli
Understandably Virat Kohli headed home to India following the first Test debacle in Adelaide to be present for the birth of his daughter. This opened the door for the cool and calm Ajinkya Rahane to step up as captain and lead the severely disrupted Indian side to a memorable series win against the odds. Will India now see Rahane as the preferred captaincy option?

Could Virat Kohli’s captaincy be coming under pressure? (Photo by Daniel Kalisz/Getty Images)

Leadership
Tim Paine’s leadership has been criticised by everyone, including hypocritically by the legendry Sunil Gavaskar, and questions have arisen as to whether it’s ideal to be keeping wickets and captaining the side at the same time, particularly in pressure-cooker situations like the fourth innings in both Sydney and Brisbane. Unfortunately the Australian captaincy cupboard looks bare at the moment, so don’t expect Paine to lose the leadership anytime soon. Coach Justin Langer may also come under scrutiny in the coming weeks, although I expect him to keep a low profile.

Mitchell Starc
After taking four first-innings wickets in Adelaide, Starc has taken just seven wickets for the rest of the series and, together with Nathan Lyon, hasn’t had the impact with the ball we were expecting prior to the commencement of the series. He looked cooked in the fourth innings in Sydney and should have been replaced for the fourth Test. Hopefully he can return to form in the next series.

Nathan Lyon
The series was all set up for Lyon to grab the headlines. Entering the elite ranks of Australians to play 100 Tests and with the 400-Test-wicket milestone within easy reach, he failed to perform up to expectations, taking just nine expensive wickets for the series, finishing on 399 Test wickets and failing to pose any real threat to the Indian bowlers in the fourth innings in either Sydney or Brisbane.

Nathan Lyon had a shocker this summer (Photo by Ryan Pierse/Getty Images)

Opportunity
This series has presented opportunities to a lot of players to get their foot in the door of Test cricket. For Australia, Cameron Green impressed both in the middle order and in the field, while Will Pucovski showed plenty of ability in his only Test. For India, the list of players grabbing their opportunity with both hands is a long one. Batsman Shubman Gill, mentioned above, looks like he’s here to stay, while bowlers Washingto Sundar, Navdeep Saini, Mohammed Siraj, Shardul Thakur and Thangarasu Natarajan all stepped up to form a very effective, if inexperienced, bowling attack. Let’s hope the Indian selectors take notice and give them a lot more game time.

Pat Cummins
His record of 21 wickets at 20.05 for the series just about says it all. Cummins stood head and shoulders above his teammates and is one of the few Australian players to escape the series defeat with his reputation intact. Hopefully his days as first-change bowler have finally ended.

Questions
Cricket Australia will need a couple of whiteboards to list all of the questions thrown up by this series. Whether it be scheduling, team selections, coaching and captaincy or the lack of any four-day cricket, there are plenty of questions to be answered over the coming months. My tip is that CA will absolve itself of any blame for the current state of the game. And it’s good to see their first priority after a losing series is to worry about whether they should acknowledge Australia Day or not. Are you kidding?

Mitchell Starc. (Photo by Bradley Kanaris/Getty Images)

Rishabh Pant
Pant is one of the most entertaining (and annoying) cricketers ever to come to this country. Criticised at different times for his wicketkeeping, constant chatter and the alleged misuse of the concussion substitution rule in Sydney, he eventually won every true cricket believer over with his exuberant and fearless batting that went a long way to winning the series for India. Very few players would have the courage to bat like he did in the fourth innings at both Sydney and Brisbane. Surely any thoughts of leaving him out of the Indian team for a ‘better’ wicketkeeper have now disappeared.

Steve Smith
Is it me or is Smith getting quirkier as time goes on? So much of his energy and concentration seems to be spent on dealing with his idiosyncrasies these days that it may well be affecting his game. Some of his dismissals this series were very un-Smith-like. Still, after a poor start in the first two Tests he improved in Sydney and Brisbane, but he couldn’t get Australia home in either game.

Test cricket
This series clearly demonstrated how superior Test matches are to any other form of the game. Four intriguing games, even the draw, with the series result coming right down to the wire. You just can’t beat it.

(Photo by Kelly Defina/Getty Images)

Umpiring
For the first time in many years COVID-19 has meant the Tests were played without the benefit of neutral umpires, and Australian umpires Paul Reiffel, Paul Wilson, Bruce Oxenford and Rod Tucker did a great job.

Vale, the Gabbanator
The Gabba has been a fortress for the Australian cricket team since it last lost there in 1988. Visiting teams have dreaded playing in Brisbane, and with good reason. Swing, seam, turn and bounce – all ingredients used effectively by successive Australian bowling attacks. The Indian team put an end to this on Tuesday.

Warner, David
Are we witnessing the decline of David Warner? Injury hasn’t helped him this series, limiting him to just two of the four Tests, but a batting average of just 16.75 in those games is well short of what he’s capable of, particularly when he was largely up against India’s second-string attack. Fortunately there’s not much competition for his place in the team at the moment, so he may have time to turn things around.

Xenophobia
It’s always hard to find an X word in these articles, but thanks to the actions, or alleged actions, of a few idiots in the crowd in Sydney we’ve got it covered. I often wonder what type of person can claim to be a sports lover while being a racist at the same time.

Young gun
No Ravichandran Ashwin, no Ravindra Jadeja? No worries! Washington Sundar was thrown in the deep end to make his Test debut in the series decider in Brisbane and handled it with ease. The 21-year-old was given the bowling all-rounder role and finished the match with four wickets, 84 runs and a catch. A player of the future.

Zip it!
Tim Paine learnt a very valuable lesson in Sydney: actions speak louder than words, particularly when the stump mic is on. He made himself look a bit silly in the circumstances and drew a lot of criticism, none of which did his team any good. Hopefully it’s lesson learnt.