Where: The Gabba, Brisbane (venue for third Test, 14-18 December 2024) 

When: 19 January 2021 (fourth Test, day five) 

What was happening: 

It wasn’t only the Border-Gavaskar Trophy – which India had tightly held since their hard-fought home series win in 2017 – that was up for grabs in the final Test of a wildly fluctuating 2020-21 campaign. 

Victory at the Gabba in Brisbane, where Australia had remained undefeated since 1988, would all-but guarantee their place in the inaugural ICC World Test Championship final to be held in England later that year. 

But despite recent and more distant history indicating otherwise, India entered that series decider with an almost illogical belief they could reprise their historic triumph on Australia’s turf of three summers’ prior. 

After Australia had flattened their rivals for 36 in the second innings of the series opener at Adelaide – the lowest innings total recorded in more than 70 years of Tests between the nations – India appeared bereft of hope. 

Then, across the ensuing two Tests they became similarly light-on for playing stocks after skipper Virat Kohli returned home for the impending birth of his first child and first-choice bowlers succumbed to injury. 

Quicks Mohammed Shami, Umesh Yadav and Jasprit Bumrah were all sidelined as were spin duo Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja, forcing the tourists to dig deep into their supplies of auxiliary (and largely untried) talent. 

Against the odds, India triumphed in the second Test at Melbourne and batted out a dogged final day at the SCG to secure a draw and ensure the series remained poised at 1-1 heading into the Gabba. 

Their bowling attack was spearheaded by greenhorn Mohammed Siraj (playing just his third Test) while the additional loss of injured batters K.L. Rahul and Hanuma Vihari meant a debut for spin-bowling allrounder Washington Sundar. 

India’s wretched fortune continued into the game, with seamer Navdeep Saini (in his second Test outing) suffering a groin strain on day one as Australia piled on 369. 

But the visitors makeshift batting line-up narrowed the first-innings deficit to 33, before the patched-together bowling ensemble restricted the home team to less than 300 in the second innings on a pitch that seemed to be flattening out rather than cracking up. 

It meant the Border-Gavaskar Trophy would be decided on the final day of the Test summer, with India needing a distant 328 to win – or bat out 98 overs to draw – to retain the prestigious prize. 

For Australia, the equation was similarly simple. 

Capture 10 wickets, albeit with a bowling line-up that had become a victim of its own success with the same four players – skipper Pat Cummins, Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood and Nathan Lyon – deployed across all four Tests while India was forced to utilise fresh (and largely fresh-faced) personnel. 

Why you needed to see it 

When India resumed at 0-4 on a typically steamy Brisbane morning, the likelihood of them achieving the highest successful fourth-innings run chase ever mounted at the Gabba appeared slim. 

An Australia win loomed largest, with the threat of afternoon rain boosting the chances of a draw. 

But India could cite their maiden Test series win in Australia two years earlier as proof they could defy history as well as popular opinion, even if it would take a virtual second XI to achieve it. 

That job became significantly harder when opener Rohit Sharma – one of only three experienced batters in the revamped top six – fell in the day’s opening half hour. 

However, 21-year-old Shubman Gill (in his third Test appearance) took up the challenge, and with dogged support from veteran Cheteshwar Pujara (who scored just eight from the first 90 balls he faced), they carried their team to 1-83 at lunch. 

The scoring rate of barely two an over was never going to threaten the victory target, so Gill upped the tempo following the break with some audacious strokes against a barrage of short-pitched bowling from Australia’s quicks. 

A pull for six off Starc was followed by consecutive boundaries from the next two deliveries but no sooner had the target dropped below 200 than Lyon had Gill snared at slip for 91. 

Pujara and stand-in skipper Ajinkya Rahane then dug in as the day-five pitch began to exhibit signs of variable bounce. 

But the loss of the latter shortly before tea and the former’s glacial scoring rate (25 per 100 balls faced) meant if India were to seriously threaten the 158 needed from a minimum 37 overs in the series’ final session it was up to the newbies. 

Keeper Rishabh Pant – aged 23 and with 15 Tests under his belt – was the ‘senior’ member of that lower order and had previously revealed his indomitable temperament via his non-stop chirping behind the stumps and some cheeky verbal exchanges with Australia captain Tim Paine. 

When India managed just 11 runs from the first seven overs after tea it seemed they were eyeing the safety of a draw and retention of the trophy, but all that changed from the final delivery of the eighth over following the interval. 

Pant signalled it was go time by slamming Lyon back over the bowler’s head for six and, with just nine overs until the second new ball became available, India were on the charge. 

Two balls later, Pant slashed Starc high over backward point in a clear embrace of limited-overs batting as the run rate steadily increased. 

The arrival of the new ball seemingly halted that charge when Pat Cummins trapped Pujara lbw with his second delivery, but Pant wasn’t backing down and simply stepped up his attack. 

India piled on 31 from the first five overs with the new ball against a visibly wilting pace battery and began the final hour requiring 69 from a minimum of 15 overs. 

The search for runs cost Mayank Agarwal (in his 14th Test) his wicket shortly after resumption, at which point debutant Sundar joined Pant and the required rate soon reached more than a run per ball. 

Then 21-year-old Sundar’s international experience consisted of 26 T20s and a lone one-dayer, but the off-drive produced against Cummins to pocket his first Test boundary oozed red-ball class. 

Four overs later he produced the defining images of that extraordinary evening when he hooked Australia’s most threatening bowler – and current Test skipper – for six and then followed up with a boundary over slips. 

Consecutive fours to Pant from Lyon’s next over reduced the equation to 31 needed off 39 balls, and not even Sundar’s dismissal for 22 (off 29 deliveries) could quell India’s victory march. 

Fittingly, it was Pant who finished the job, driving Hazlewood to the long-off rope to secure back-to-back series wins in Australia with an over to spare. 

“I don’t know how to describe this victory,” Rahane said in the wake of his team’s three-wicket win, while Pant was left to marvel at what he rightly believed was the “biggest moment of my life” to that point. 

The riveting conclusion to a compelling series remains one of the most dramatic in Australia’s recent Test history, and only served to raise expectations when the Border-Gavaskar Trophy is again up for grabs this summer. 

Who might repeat history: 

Who might repeat history: 

Pant has only recently returned to cricket after a serious motor accident in December 2022 and is back behind the stumps for India. However, the left-hander hasn’t been able to convert starts so far in the series despite thrilling with some outrageous strokeplay in Adelaide. 

With Pujara and Rahane seemingly no longer in the Test frame, the visitors have brought even more young talent with the calibre of opener Yashasvi Jaiswal, who played a sensational knock of 161 in Perth, and debutant allrounder Nitish Kumar Reddy, who has impressed with quick middle-order cameos across the four innings of the first two Tests.

With the series tied 1-1 going into Brisbane, it is apparent that the young guns will again have to be the heroes for India if they have to have a chance of becoming just the third Test nation of the past 50 years – after West Indies and South Africa – to emerge triumphant in three consecutive tours to Australia.

NRMA Insurance Men’s Test Series v India

First Test: India won by 295 runs

Second Test: Australia won by 10 wickets

Third Test: December 14-18: The Gabba, Brisbane, 11.20am AEDT

Fourth Test: December 26-30: MCG, Melbourne, 10.30am AEDT

Fifth Test: January 3-7: SCG, Sydney, 10.30am AEDT

Australia squad (for second Test): Pat Cummins (c), Sean Abbott, Scott Boland, Alex Carey (wk), Brendan Doggett, Josh Hazlewood, Travis Head, Josh Inglis, Usman Khawaja, Marnus Labuschagne, Nathan Lyon, Mitch Marsh, Nathan McSweeney, Steve Smith, Mitchell Starc, Beau Webster

India squad: Rohit Sharma (c), Jasprit Bumrah (vc), Yashasvi Jaiswal, KL Rahul, Abhimanyu Easwaran, Devdutt Padikkal, Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli, Rishabh Pant, Sarfaraz Khan, Dhruv Jurel, Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Mohammed Siraj, Akash Deep, Prasidh Krishna, Harshit Rana, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Washington Sundar. Reserves: Mukesh Kumar, Navdeep Saini, Khaleel Ahmed, Yash Dayal