Battlefield Perth ready for India's next big Test

The first Test of the five-match series for the Border Gavaskar trophy gets underway on Friday, and India's truly rabid fans will be hoping that the country's team can achieve a once-unthinkable three-peat down under.

- Ashish Magotra

Once unthinkable because that is what history shows. From the first tour in 1947-1948 which saw India skipper Lala Amarnath's batting coming in from high praise from the Don himself to 2014-15, India won just five Tests in Australia.

Then, out of nowhere, India won two series in a row - four Tests across the two.

In 2018-19, Cheteshwar Pujara (521 runs, 1,258 balls and an average of 74.42) lifted the team with a gritty display that would have fitted into any manual on how to bat in Test matches. He wore down the Aussies and when he was done, the men from down under had nothing left to give.

In 2020-21, Australia were stronger and the triumph was even more remarkable when one considers that India were bowled out for 36 in the first Test at Adelaide. In a different era, that collapse would have broken the team's spirit. But instead, they rose-with not just the odd piece of resistance but as a group, and amid injuries that tested the team's bench.

By the time the fourth Test came along in 2020-21, the bowling attack consisted of Mohammed Siraj, T Natarajan, Shardul Thakur, Navdeep Saini and Washington Sundar. In the fourth innings of the final Test, Shubman Gill (91) and Rishabh Pant (89 not out) played the kind of innings that perhaps told everyone that India's time had come.