There are very few spectacles in the contest between leather and willow that can quite eclipse the unbridled joy of watching Indian batters navigate bumpy bouncers from the Australian quicks with utmost disciple and concentration to conquer to the Border-Gavaskar trophy. 

While over the years the Kangaroos had bettered India, with the iconic Test victory in the Eden Gardens in 2001, the ‘Men in Blue’ turned around and ushered in a brand new generation of cricket. 

And it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to see that over the last few encounters India have dished out quite the hammering to the Baggy Greens. 

Here let’s take a look at the last three encounters for the Border-Gavaskar trophy:

India tour of Australia (2018/19) 

For the fans and faithfuls of Team India, this is probably sweetest memory down under. India had toured Australia since 1947, yet, the team had failed to register one single Test series win on the Australian soil. 

India had recognised the series to be their most favourable opportunity early on. Australia were without their two brightest stars Steve Smith and David Warner, owing to their ban in the infamous sandpaper gate scandal.

With Cheteshwar Pujara leading the batting unit, with 521 runs from 7 innings, India sealed the four-match series and Border-Gavaskar trophy with an emphatic victory in the first and the third test and a dominating draw in the last one. 

The troika of Jasprit Bumrah (21 wickets), Mohammed Shami (16) and Ishant Sharma (11) bamboozled the Australian batters with their pace and bounce.

Australia tour of India (2016/17)

While India had evidently struggled on Australian soil, they had also built a stronghold here back in the Indian pitches, where the Australian batters welcomed the turning tracks with straight bats and inevitably ended up edging it to the slips.

In the 2016/17 series, Australia started the tour with an emphatic 333 runs victory, bundling India for 105 and 107 in the first and the second innings respectively. 

However, India came back strong to win the second Test and level the series. The third match played out as a draw, while in the series decider, India held their nerves to triumph Australia and bag the Border-Gavaskar trophy. 

While Smith was the highest run-getter in the series, for Team India it was yet again Pujara who did the talking with the bat, with 405 runs in 7 innings. But it was the vicious pair of Ravindra Jadeja and Ravichandran Ashwin who scalped 25 and 21 wickets respectively and handed over the victory to Team India on a silver plate. 

India tour of Australia (2014/15)

This was Steve Smith’s series. There’s not much to talk apart from the battering he dished out to the Indian bowlers. Averaging a mammoth 128.16, the Sydney-born amassed 769 runs in 8 innings and shattered all record books. 

Australia won the first Adeliade Test with three of their batsmen registering centuries in the first innings. The Kangaroos followed it up with another scintillating performance in the Brisbane Test and went 2-0 in the series. While Virat Kohli too batted brilliantly, he really couldn’t manage to eclipse the brilliance of Smith in the particular series and India had to settle for two hard-earned draws in the final two Tests. 

While Nathan Lyon scalped the highest wickets (23) in the series, for India it was Shami who aced with the leather with 15 wickets.