The 2024/25 Border-Gavaskar Trophy, 1-1 after the first three Tests, has been a series defiant of regular patterns and trends. Naman Agarwal explores how.
The India team arrived in Australia for the Border-Gavaskar Trophy in batches, with most players in the country by November 12. Since then, 40 days have passed and three Test matches have been played. Yet, the players have only been on the field for 682.1 overs.
Assuming an average day of Test cricket consists of 90 overs, that amounts to less than eight days worth of cricket. Which in turn averages out to less than three days per Test match.
When you picture a Test series in Australia, you picture long, attritional days of cricket if the visiting team is on a relatively equal footing as the hosts, and long, demoralising days of cricket if they are not. In this series, India have not been far behind Australia, as the scoreline of 1-1 suggests, but days have been anything but long. The 682.1 overs bowled so far is the lowest number in a series of three or more games in Australia, ever.
While rain played a significant part in Brisbane, it did not play any in Perth or Adelaide. The salient factor in why so few overs have been played is that the actual cricket played has been uncharacteristically chaotic, and as a consequence has been dizzyingly quick. It's been akin two grandmasters throwing caution, tact, and patience to the wind and finally giving in to how they’ve always wanted to play, sacrificing and exchanging pieces on the board with every other move.
The new version of the Kookaburra ball has been a factor, having made batting tougher with its more pronounced seam. Between 2000-2019, the Test batting average in Australia was 34.03. From the start of 2020 to the start of this series, it fell down to 27.66. Naturally, the rate of scoring also saw a decline - from 3.16 to 3.02 in the respective time-frames. The trend of declining averages has continued in this series, but that of declining scoring rates has not.
A wicket has cost 24.64 runs in the three Tests so far. But runs have come at 3.31 runs per over. This is the fastest-scoring series in Australia since the turn of the decade, which is approximately when the Kookaburra was updated. Seam-bowling of the highest quality has been on display across both sides, and batters have adopted the age-old doctrine of attack is the best form of defence, not knowing which ball would have their name written on it. Travis Head (94.23), Nitish Kumar Reddy (72.17), Shubman Gill (71.42), and Alex Carey (70.74) have led the charge, all striking above 70. Overall, 10 batters have struck above 60, and eight of them have scored more than 50 runs doing so.
The general pattern of play in Australia is that Josh Hazlewood would wear the opposition down with his metronomic accuracy, Pat Cummins would almost always be at his relentless best, not allowing any breathing space to batters, Mitchell Starc would be the erratic strike bowler, and Nathan Lyon would chug away with regular wickets at one end as the three quicks rotated amongst themselves at the other. That pattern has gone for a toss in this series.
