The Border-Gavaskar Trophy finished on Sunday with a resounding 3-1 win for Australia over India – England’s two biggest opponents in 2025.
The series has become so hard-fought that many observers now see it as bigger than the Ashes – and the conversations it generates definitely rival, if not surpass, the frenzy of the oldest match-up in Test cricket.
India had seemed poised for yet another famous win on Aussie soil after their first Test victory in Perth but Pat Cummins’ side roared back and took advantage of some tepid batting from the tourists to cement their place as the world’s best Test team – and all-but guarantee a spot in the World Test Championship final in June at Lord’s.
But what have we learned from one of the most memorable Test series in recent times? Mail Sport pinpoints 10 lessons.
1. These days, Australia v India is about more than cricket
It is about big business: nearly 850,000 spectators turned up for the five Tests.
Australia roared back from 1-0 down to seal an enthralling 3-1 Border-Gavaskar Trophy win
Pat Cummins’ side have all but confirmed their place in the World Test Championship final
And it is about big egos, a clash between the sport’s traditional giants and its economic powerhouse; the on-field aggro was inevitable.
The BGT also oils the wheels of social media. Witness the bickering between the two sets of supporters (though Indian fans really need to come up with an insult that doesn’t include sandpaper).
Above all, it confirms the pre-series suspicion that this is now the biggest show in town. The Ashes has a lot to live up to.
2. India will never fulfil their frightening potential until they stop placing their biggest names on pedestals
Before the series began, this column argued that their ‘over-reliance on seniority is likely to cost them over the next few weeks’.
Sure enough, Rohit Sharma averaged six, then dropped himself, while Virat Kohli scored a second-innings century at Perth when India were already out of sight, but otherwise averaged 10.
Since the start of 2020, he is averaging less than Zak Crawley.
Will the selectors cut their ties when they pick the squad for the tour of England? Don’t bet on it.
Nearly 850,000 spectators turned up for the five Tests across the series held in Australia
India will never reach their potential while they are holding their older icons on a pedestal (pictured: Virat Kohli, left, and Rohit Sharma, right)
3. India have other problems
Based on events in Australia, only five names can be inked in with any confidence for the first Test at Headingley on June 20: Yashasvi Jaiswal, Rishabh Pant, Mohammed Siraj, Jasprit Bumrah and – if fit – Mohammed Shami.
Ravindra Jadeja may play if they want a spinner, though Washington Sundar is pushing him hard. The fast bowling ought to be fine.
But who’s going to score the runs in conditions that have brought them only nine Test wins out of 67 since their first visit to England in 1932?
4. Australians, it turns out, quite like an opening batsman who reverse-scoops the new ball (so long as that batsman is one of their own)
The hoopla surrounding Sam Konstas’s incandescent 60 in his first Test innings at the MCG was proof that – deep down – even a batting culture as conservative as theirs has room for adventure.
But an intriguing scenario arises: if Ben Duckett out-scoops Konstas next winter, will the hosts have to become less sniffy about Bazball?
Because until Konstas had his fun on Boxing Day, they were very much holding their nose.
Rishabh Pant is one of only five players whose names can be inked with any confidence for the series opener with England this summer
Australia’s Sam Konstas showed that even a batting culture as conservative as theirs has room for adventure
5. In two crucial areas Australia refreshed their team, as they must if they are to hit the ground running in the Ashes: not just Konstas, but all-rounder Beau Webster, whose successful debut at the SCG may have spelled the end for Mitchell Marsh
Yet can the slow-motion struggles of Usman Khawaja and Marnus Labuschagne (who both averaged in the 20s against India, with strike rates in the 40s) be tolerated for another 12 months?
It doesn’t help that Steve Smith, who finished marooned on 9,999 Test runs, is also nearing the end. Australia have a delicate balance to strike.
6. Can we stop for a moment and salute Jasprit Bumrah?
The only bowler in Test history with 200 wickets at an average below 20, he was the closest thing to a one-man attack since Richard Hadlee’s New Zealand prompted Graham Gooch to hail ‘the World XI at one end and Ilford 2nds at the other’.
And if that may be a bit harsh on Siraj, then Bumrah’s series haul of 32 wickets at 13 was one of the great performances by a visiting bowler in Australia. Without him, it would have been 5–0 Australia.
7. Sunil Gavaskar, the great Indian-opener-turned-acidic-commentator, never stops moaning – even when says he’s not moaning
Witness his claim that Indians don’t complain about pitches, only to suggest that ‘cows could have grazed’ on the surface at the SCG.
Steve Smith finished the Border-Gavaskar series marooned precariously on 9,999 Test runs
Jasprit Bumrah is the only bowler in Test history with 200 wickets at an average below 20
Thankfully, his knee-jerk assessment of Pant’s first-innings dismissal at Melbourne (‘Stupid, stupid, stupid!’) did not dissuade Pant from hitting 61 off 33 balls at Sydney, one of the innings of the series.
And it felt appropriate that, even when it was all over, Gavaskar was still muttering away, this time because he wasn’t part of the presentation ceremony for the trophy bearing his name.
8. Scott Boland can be lethal
England fans already knew this, after he marked his Test debut with figures of six for seven at Melbourne four years ago.
But he can also be hittable, which England fans knew too: in the 2023 Ashes, he averaged 115 with the ball, and disappeared at nearly five an over, Australia’s most expensive seamer.
In the last three Tests against India, he was allowed to hit his rhythm, and he did it majestically. If England make the same mistake next winter, he will dictate terms once more.
9. The extra lacquer on the Kookaburra ball made life as difficult for spinners as it did for opening batsmen
Nathan Lyon managed all of nine wickets, while Ravichandran Ashwin retired mid-series, and Ravindra Jadeja managed four wickets at 54.
Scott Boland proved that he can be lethal when he is allowed to his rhythm with ball in hand
Will England really need Shoaib Bashir for all five Ashes Tests? Or should they play to their seam-bowling strengths, and use Joe Root’s off-breaks to give the quicks a breather?
If, by the first Test in Perth, Bashir still feels like the ‘work in progress’ we keep being told about, the Root option will look increasingly attractive.
10. England won’t care to admit it, but Australia keep lifting their game when it matters
By regaining the BGT, they assumed possession of all the bilateral Test trophies available to them.
They are one-day world champions, have reached the final of the World Test Championship, and are top of the Test rankings.
It could be the year that defines the Bazball project. A trip to Australia will be as tough as it gets.
2024 – The year of the Test cricket cracker
In 2024, Test cricket kept throwing up crackers. West Indies won at the Gabba, Sri Lanka at the Oval. Pakistan came from behind to beat England, and New Zealand won 3–0 in India.
West Indies beat Australia at the Gabba in one of the stories of the year in Test cricket
South Africa, to the despair of the countries who barely bothered to play them, reached the final of the World Test Championship.
None of which has stopped a few greedy executives from over-reacting to the financial success of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy and demanding that Australia, India and England play each other even more often than they already do.
It should hardly need saying that the lure of these five-match series is already being threatened by overkill.
What do these geniuses want – to finish off Test cricket for good?
Neutrals will be left with little alternative but to hope South Africa beat Australia at Lord’s this summer, and remind the money-grabbers that there is life beyond the Big Three.
Boycotting Afghanistan would not make a difference
Over 160 MPs have signed a letter to the ECB demanding England pull out of next month’s Champions Trophy fixture against Afghanistan in Lahore in protest at the Taliban’s brutal suppression of women.
The impulse is understandable – but it won’t make the blindest bit of difference.
Boycotting the Champions Cup fixture with Afghanistan will not make the blindest bit of difference
Since sending a C team to New Zealand South Africa have been on a fantastic run of form
The Taliban care not a jot for global opinion: boycotting Afghanistan’s men would simply end cricket there altogether, without shifting the political dial.
The focus should instead be on allowing Afghanistan’s women cricketers to establish a home away from home in Australia, where many of them now live.
It will have the added bonus of annoying the Taliban.
Test cricket isn’t dead in South Africa just yet
When South Africa sent a C team to New Zealand early last year, it looked as if they had lost interest.
Since then, they have won seven and drawn one, with their captain Temba Bavuma averaging over 60 with the bat, and Kagiso Rabada, Marco Jansen and spinner Keshav Maharaj combining for 100 wickets at 20.
Test cricket isn’t dead there just yet.
