Delhi Test: India retain Border-Gavaskar Trophy after Ravindra Jadeja scripts huge victory vs Australia

NEW DELHI,FEB 19 : India retained the Border-Gavaskar Trophy after beating Australia by 6 wickets in the second Test of a four-match series at the Arun Jaitley Stadium in Delhi on Sunday.

India have won their last three Test series against Australia, including two down under. India have now ensured they cannot lose this Test series with two more matches left. Besides, Australia have now gone without the Border-Gavaskar Trophy in their grasp for nearly a decade. The last time Australia had the trophy with them was back in 2014-15 after winning 2-0 at home.

Last Saturday, Australia collapsed to an innings defeat in Nagpur after losing 10 wickets in a session. On Sunday, Australia had a slender lead but another incredible collapse meant they lost 9 wickets in the morning session and all India had to do was chase 114 to win the Delhi Test.

KL Rahul fell in bizarre fashion before lunch but the in-form Rohit Sharma ensured there were no hiccups in the chase for India after Ravindra Jadeja ripped apart the Australian batting line-up with career-best figures of 7 for 42. He also completed his second 10-wicket haul in Test cricket, while R Ashwin added to his tally with 3 wickets.

Rohit Sharma was batting beautifully, taking the Australian spinners on before he was run out due to a horrible mix-up with Cheteshwar Pujara.

However, India never appeared to be in any kind of trouble as Virat Kohli joined Pujara at the crease and kept pushing the scoreboard. Kohli batted like a dream in the first innings before his innings ended abruptly under controversial circumstances. In the second innings, Kohli just carried on and made a strong impact and dented Australia’s morale as India cruised to a comfortable win.

Cheteshwar Pujara had bagged a duck in the first innings of his 100th Test but he made amends in the second during an important partnership with Virat Kohli as India took an unbeatable lead in the series.

Ravindra Jadeja and R Ashwin shared the spoils, bowling beautifully, using their variations and experience as Australia tried too hard. There were too many unorthodox shots from Australia’s batters against the two best spinners in the world on a difficult pitch.

Australia were without David Warner after he was ruled out with a concussion. Travis Head was promoted to open alongside Usman Khawaja and looked good before he was dismissed for 43 in the morning.

Marnus Labuschagne was the only other Australian batter who looked assured on the pitch, but even his innings was cut short by Jadeja, who bowled as many as 5 batters in his total haul of 7 wickets in the second innings.

It was a poor batting performance from Australia, who would have expected to improve on their first innings efforts. But Usman Khawaja and Peter Handscomb, who had hit half-centuries in the first innings, failed in the second. Steve Smith continued to have a poor Test match. After getting out for a duck on Friday, Smith flopped again on Sunday.

But the day really belonged to Ravindra Jadeja who had made a sensational return to international cricket with an all-round effort last week in Nagpur. He was more expensive with the ball in Delhi but still picked 3 wickets, scored a crucial 26 and then dismantled Australia with a 7-wicket haul.

R Ashwin picked 6 wickets in the match and scored 37 in a critical partnership with Axar Patel. Axar of course continued from where he left off in Nagpur. His 59 was the cornerstone of another heroic fightback from India as they stormed to a famous victory in Delhi.

-The India Today