India tour of Australia (Nov 22, 2024 - Jan 03, 2025)

[sussexpob]

Baz and Ben will be fabricating documents for an English grandfather if Australia drop him

[backfootpunch]

Smith goes

Game on

This is hugely entertaining but a dreadful cricket wicket

[bigfluffylemon]

Australia favourites. Losing Bumrah has been a big blow. But another wicket now with 60 to go and it's still anybody's. Just doubt the back up bowlers have the penetration to get India over the line.

[meninblue]

Over in 2 and half days of play. Well done for winning the series 3-1.If rain had not interrupted in one test, it was 4-1.

[GarlicJam]

A great test series has finished. Australia have done very well to dominate after being so badly outplayed in the first test, being the stronger side in all subsequent tests. a 3-1 margin is a fair result.

Well done to India though, a great series needs two strong competitors.

Great competitiveness, and absolutely brilliant performance by Jasprit Bumrah - one that may be the best I will ever see - India were unlucky he couldn't last the final innings, but that is one of the meanings behind "test series".

Aus now have all bilateral trophies they play for, as well as Test and One Day titles - the vast majority of them all achieved under Pat Cummins' leadership. No small achievement.

[alfie]

Well done Australia

A good series in terms of some up and down ; but in truth Australia were very much the superior side. Bumrah kept India in it almost singlehandedly (OK , the odd helping hand from Jaiswal , Reddy and Siraj - and even Pant at the end ; but largely himself) 3-1 a fair result.

Pity Bumrah got injured . Suspect Australia would have just about got home anyway but we will never know...

Easy from in front of the TV . But I do think India erred by being (Pant aside) a little too passive in both innings. Batting was hard , no question. But a few more risks taken might have seen shorter innings but significantly more runs...might have. Again we can't know. What we can say is the undisciplined bowling in those first few overs this morning was very costly... With only two main bowlers they needed to not only take wickets but also pressure Australia so that they didn't get off to a flier , allowing a bit more time to rest one of them briefly with a bit of Reddy or Jadeja and hope enough balls in the right spot would yield errors...but yeah , bit too much to do for the team without its main weapon.

Boland had a wonderful game - again. He's never going to be so deadly on flatter pitches but he's certainly a gun in these conditions. And Webster proved an inspired - if rather obvious - choice to replace the out of form Marsh. Fitted in like a glove ... and played two important innings as well as bowling very useful overs to keep the main men fresh. Won't keep a batting average of 96 for long but has surely scured a spot for a while now he's finally made his debut.

[alfie]

And yes , of course massive praise for Cummins. Led from the front ; shouldered a lot of the heavy work with the ball and some useful hands with the bat. They will miss him in Sri Lanka.

[mikesiva]

India 157 all out

Pant 61

Boland 6-45
Cummins 3-45

Target 162

[mikesiva]

Australia 162-4

Khawaja 41
Webster 39*
Head 34*

Prasidh 3-65

Australia won by six wickets.

Australia win the series 3-1.

[sussexpob]

1 win in 8 for India.... The BCCI need to have some balls and burn the blueprint. A lot of these batters don't justify their place

[sussexpob]

Guess you could say the same of Australia as well. Khawaja had a horror show, Smith made 1 score but overall it's becoming impossible not to acknowledge a permanent decline. Labu was similar with one useful score and another terrible series. Konstas looks really raw, and I wonder if another year or two in the Shield would make his long term prospects better.

If Travis Heads form disappears tomorrow, this batting line up is in deep trouble. But as we seen here, on these pitches good luck scoring against Australia's bowlers.

I have a feeling next year's Ashes is going to be a banger. Two fallible sides often make for compelling contests.

[alfie]

Guess you could say the same of Australia as well. Khawaja had a horror show, Smith made 1 score but overall it's becoming impossible not to acknowledge a permanent decline. Labu was similar with one useful score and another terrible series. Konstas looks really raw, and I wonder if another year or two in the Shield would make his long term prospects better.

If Travis Heads form disappears tomorrow, this batting line up is in deep trouble. But as we seen here, on these pitches good luck scoring against Australia's bowlers.

I have a feeling next year's Ashes is going to be a banger. Two fallible sides often make for compelling contests.

Smith actually made two centuries ; but other than that I agree the Aussie batting looks a bit fragile. Next Ashes ought to be much more competitive than the last few in Australia have been. I think England have the bowlers (fitness permitting !) to do a job. Main reservation being I am less sure of the batting with really only Root and Stokes of the current crew with any serious experience of red ball cricket in Australia. But that is all for the future...

[GarlicJam]

Two fallible sides often make for compelling contests.

Indeed. This series was a good example of that