Staying calm key to Aussies' Border-Gavaskar Trophy triumph

Having become the first Australia Test captain since Mark Taylor on the 1997 Ashes campaign to turn a 0-1 deficit into a five-Test series triumph, Pat Cummins attributed his team's refusal to panic as a decisive factor in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy win.

When India thumped the reigning World Test Champions by 295 runs in the first Test at Perth, Cummins was bemused by some of the commentary that accompanied the result.

In particular, he was stung by suggestions Australia's preparation had been inferior to their opponents who had been based in Perth for more than a week prior to the game starting, whereas Australia convened just days before.

The home team also lost an entire pre-Test training session to Perth's unusually wet last spring weather with critics citing a lack of match preparedness for a sub-par second innings bowling effort and top-order batting collapses in both knocks.

That critique was compounded by suggestions of a rift among Australia's playing group, seemingly based on an innocuous throwaway line from fast bowler Josh Hazlewood in a post-play media conference.

But it was the refusal of Australia's brainstrust and playing personnel to tune into the external 'noise' or succumb to kneejerk reactions to what the team acknowledged was nothing more or less sinister than a poor performance that proved pivotal.

From that point, Cummins' men didn't lose another Test and might conceivably have finished the five-match campaign 4-1 victors had rain not plagued the third Test at Brisbane where they set India a 275-run victory target on a washed-out final day.

An emphatic 10-wicket win in Adelaide was followed by a 184-run victory at the MCG (albeit in the final hour of day five) and crowned by today's six-wicket success inside three days at the SCG.

When cricket historians reflect on the scope of Australia's reclamation of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy that India had held since 2017, it will be seen as an emphatic series win that might well have been bigger.

In the immediate aftermath of today's win achieved around 2.30pm on a sunny Sunday, Cummins conceded there had been times during the gruelling but compelling summer he wondered if the 0-1 start they had gifted India might not yield his men a prize.

"You saw with the Gabba, you do start thinking anything can happen," Cummins said in reference to that frustrating draw after Australia had dominated the first innings.

"And when the MCG got down to the last hour you do feel like you might play really well and not have a series win to show for it.

"When you start a series behind, a lot of things get questioned, fairly and unfairly.

"But I think it shows the strength of the group to stay strong, know that we weren't at our best but can get better, know we won't get caught up in the external noise and clutter, and just focus on what makes us good players and a good team.

"That's one of the most rewarding parts of this series."

There was no more illustrative example of the refusal to be swayed by outside opinions than the pink-ball second Test at Adelaide Oval that started 11 days after the hefty loss at Perth.

The sole change Australia made to their starting XI was an enforced switch – seamer Scott Boland for Hazelwood, who had suffered a slight side strain in the opening game – while India opted for three new players.

One of those was to accommodate skipper Rohit Sharma who missed Perth because of paternity leave, while Shubman Gill had recovered from injury and spinner Ravichandran Ashwin came in at the expense of allrounder Nitish Kumar Reddy.

As events panned out, Rohit endured such a wretched run with the bat he "opted to rest" from the final Test as Jasprit Bumrah (who led the team in Perth) returned to the captaincy.

Then Ashwin chose to retire from international cricket after Brisbane and Reddy emerged as one of India's best-performed batters when reinstated with a maiden Test century at the MCG.

In total, Australia fielded 14 players across the series including Test debutants Nathan McSweeney, Sam Konstas and Beau Webster while India deployed 17 from their expansive squad despite taking an early lead.

"I think more importantly it's what you don't change," Cummins said today when asked about what alterations had proved most influential in Australia turning around their misfiring start in Perth.

"Of course, after a loss like that you re-asses where you're at.

"We were all really happy with how most of the guys were going, thought we had a bad week but thought our game plans, methods, and selection was all pretty much where we wanted it to be.

"Maybe our execution was a little bit off, so each individual had a few things to work on.

"I know Marnus (Labuschagne) worked so hard and wanted to change the way he approached the game.

"For us bowlers a little bit of execution as well as some slight bowling changes once you've had a look at the opposition.

'But you can very easily panic in those situations, and panic a lot.

"It's more important to realise we're still number one in the world, we're a very good team, so stay strong."

Having wrestled the series lead over at the MCG where the result hung in the balance until 5.30pm on the final day, Australia could have been excused for then demanding a flat, lifeless pitch for the decider given they needed only a drawn result to regain the Trophy.

Instead, they were greeted by the spiciest surface of the series which stood in marked contrast to recent iterations of the deck in Sydney where drawn outcomes have become the norm with three in the preceding four Tests.

It says much about the confidence Cummins and his team take from their record in any conditions around the globe, and which sees them now hold all bilateral Test silverware for which they compete as well as the ICC's WTC mace, that he welcomed the challenging conditions.

"It's very different to any other SCG pitch I've seen," Cummins said today.

"It had a lot of bounce, and obviously a lot of grass and seam movement.

"I probably prefer that to a flat, slow one that fizzles out to a draw.

"It was the same for both teams, and I really liked that the groundsman tried to put a lot of life into it.

"At times it was doing a lot, but I probably prefer Test cricket to be like that."

Cummins magnanimous view, which put the health of the Test game and the entertainment factor for paying spectators and television audiences worldwide ahead of partisan interests, was endorsed by India coach Gautam Gambhir.

Gambhir noted that India is regularly criticised for producing overtly spin-friendly pitches because of their historic superiority in such extreme conditions.

However, that ploy backfired in last year's 0-3 whitewash at home against New Zealand which left the cricket powerhouse needing an emphatic series win in Australia – where they had triumphed on their past two visits – to hold any hope of reaching June's WTC final at Lord's.

Having lost in the first two Test Championship play-offs (to New Zealand in 2021 and Australia in 2023), India has now missed a chance to land a trophy they are yet to win.

But Gambhir was able to see a broader picture.

That's despite pace bowling being so dominant on seamer-friendly tracks throughout this NRMA Insurance Test series only eight wickets fell to India's usually potent specialist spinners, while Australia's Nathan Lyon claimed nine.

"There's been some really nice wickets, and it's good for Test cricket as well," Gambhir said following his team's defeat.

"There was enough for the bowlers, there was enough for the batters as well and that is what's going to keep Test cricket alive.

"This was not a typical Sydney wicket what we're normally used to, what we've seen in the past as well.

"But this is how Test cricket needs to be played, result-oriented wickets.

"I know we talk a lot when we go back home about turning wickets, but this was as spicey as probably what we get back home on turning wickets.

"So I think this is the interesting part of Test cricket."

NRMA Insurance Men's Test Series v India

First Test: India won by 295 runs

Second Test: Australia won by 10 wickets

Third Test: Match drawn

Fourth Test: Australia won by 184 runs

Fifth Test: Australia won by six wickets

Australia squad: Pat Cummins (c), Sean Abbott, Scott Boland, Alex Carey, Travis Head (vc), Usman Khawaja, Sam Konstas, Marnus Labuschagne, Nathan Lyon, Mitchell Marsh, Jhye Richardson, Steve Smith (vc), 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