Border-Gavaskar Trophy 2020-21: India Win 2-1 in Australia — Pant 89* Breaks 32-Year Gabba Record, Pat Cummins Player of Series

India won the Border-Gavaskar Trophy 2020-21 in Australia by 2-1. Tests: Adelaide Oval (Australia won by 8 wickets; India bowled out for 36, their lowest-ever Test total, in the second innings), Melbourne Cricket Ground (India won by 8 wickets), Sydney Cricket Ground (Draw), and The Gabba, Brisbane (India won by 3 wickets — Rishabh Pant hit an unbeaten 89 as India chased 328, breaking Australia's 32-year unbeaten home record at the Gabba). Pat Cummins took 21 wickets across the series — the most of any bowler — and won Player of the Series despite Australia losing the series. Virat Kohli captained India in Adelaide before departing on paternity leave; Ajinkya Rahane captained India in Tests 2-4. Tim Paine captained Australia.

India 36 All Out at Adelaide: Lowest-Ever Test Total Followed by Series Comeback

India being dismissed for 36 all out in their second innings at Adelaide Oval in the first Test — Australia won by 8 wickets with India's 36 being the lowest total in their 90+ years of Test cricket — set up one of Test cricket's most remarkable series reversals: a team bowled out for their all-time lowest total in the first Test then winning the remaining three Tests 2-1 with a draw. Australia's Josh Hazlewood (5/8) and Pat Cummins (4/21) combined to bowl India out in the late-afternoon session at Adelaide. Virat Kohli — playing the first Test before flying home on paternity leave — departed on a loss, leaving Ajinkya Rahane with a squad missing Kohli, Shami (injured), and eventually Jadeja, Bumrah, and Ashwin across the later Tests through injury. India's comeback from 36 all out (first Test) to winning the Gabba by 3 wickets (fourth Test), fielding a heavily depleted squad including debutants like Washington Sundar and T. Natarajan, gave the 2020-21 BGT its identity as one of India's greatest-ever series wins.

Pant 89* at the Gabba: The Innings That Ended Australia's 32-Year Brisbane Fortress

Rishabh Pant's 89* off 138 balls — the last-day batting performance that guided India to 329/7 chasing 328 at The Gabba, giving India a 3-wicket win by the final session — ended Australia's 32-year unbeaten home record at Brisbane's Gabba ground (unbeaten there since 1988). Pant, the left-handed wicketkeeper-batter from Delhi who had replaced the injured Rishabh Pant's original planned role with an injured squad depleted of Jadeja, Bumrah, and Shami, hitting Pat Cummins, Josh Hazlewood, Nathan Lyon, and Mitchell Starc in the fourth Test's final day — India needing 328 to win, having never successfully chased more than 200+ on Australian soil in a fourth-innings BGT context — gave the Brisbane chase its signature moment: Pant's aggressive batting against pace and spin on a deteriorating Gabba pitch making the boundary count faster than any conservative approach would have. Pant's unbeaten 89 won him the Man of the Match at the Gabba; his innings was named one of the great Test chase performances in Australian cricket history.

Border-Gavaskar Trophy 2020-21 in Context

The Border-Gavaskar Trophy 2020-21 — Australia hosting India, December 2020-January 2021 — produced India's second consecutive Test series win in Australia (following their 2018-19 win) and one of Test cricket's most celebrated comeback stories: 36 all out in Adelaide to Gabba-win in Brisbane, fielding a depleted injury-ridden squad, defeating Australia's home fortress for the first time in 32 years. Ajinkya Rahane's captaincy across three Tests — leading India from Adelaide's catastrophe to MCG win, SCG draw, and Gabba triumph — gave Rahane his finest captaincy moment. Australia's Tim Paine resigned the Test captaincy in November 2021 (before the subsequent 2021-22 Ashes), with Pat Cummins succeeding him — making Paine's 2020-21 BGT the last series he would captain before his departure from the role.