Australia and India played in the final Test match at Ahmedabad to a tie, but India won the series 2-1 and the Border-Gavaskar Trophy for the fourth time in a row. India has also earned a spot in the World Test Championship championship match against Australia at The Oval.
The last Test of the 2023 Border-Gavaskar Trophy saw Australia lose focus and play to a draw with India in Ahmedabad, while New Zealand defeated Sri Lanka in Christchurch in a nail-biting last-ball victory. After India defeated New Zealand by two wickets to advance to their second straight World Test Championship final, it seemed as though the two teams, who had been playing high-stakes cricket for the previous month, were just going through the motions in Ahmedabad.
India and Australia played four weeks of heated Test cricket, building up to the series finale with the hosts hoping to finish with a 3-1 lead. Yet because to the Australian hitters’ unwavering spirits and the surface, which offered little assistance to bowlers, that did not occur. It was fortunate for India that Kane Williamson delivered one of the best Test innings in recent memory to deprive Sri Lanka a chance. A 3-1 victory for India in the 2023 BGT would have eliminated any other result elsewhere and advanced them to the WTC final.
India ultimately took a big lead because to Virat Kohli’s brilliance, Shubman Gill’s bravery, Cheteshwar Pujara’s endurance, and Axar Patel’s ability to hold his own with the bat, but by that point, it was clear that there would be no victor in the Test. The last day of a Test match in Asia did not see the expected decline in the playing surface, so all the Australians had to do was block and persevere in unfavourable circumstances.
R Ashwin, who was unquestionably the match’s finest bowler, battled valiantly, but after finishing with 6 for 91 in the first innings, he was only rewarded with the wicket of Matthew Kuhnemann in the second. When Australia won by nine wickets in Indore last week, Travis Head and Marnus Labuschagne were at the crease together. In Ahmedabad, the pair joined forces with the knowledge that Usman Khawaja, the series’ top run-scorer, was unable to play due to a knee injury sustained on Sunday.