The 2024-25 Border Gavaskar Trophy lived up to its billing and saw an enthralling contest between the two top-ranked teams in the world777sm, which finally ended with a 3-1 win for hosts Australia. India had their moments but could not seize the opportunities and paid the price for it. (Full Coverage | More Cricket News)

While Jasprit Bumrah delivered a performance for the ages, the batting let India down big time and some big names had a shocker of a series. Australia, with the exception of Travis Head, too had problems in the batting department but their fast-bowling unit gave them the edge in the series. Skipper Pat Cummins was their highest impact player of the series and was well aided by Mitchell Starc and Scott Boland.

We look at some of the standout numbers which defined the series.

Australia lost the series opener at Perth but came back in fine style with wins at Adelaide, MCG and SCG to take the series 3-1. It was their first victory at the BGT since 2014. It was also the first series win for Australia after trailing 0-1 since 1997.

After a goalless first quarter, Korea struck just 36 seconds into the second quarter with Jungjun Lee finding the net due to a mistake from Pakistan goalkeeper Abdullah Ishtiyaq Khan. The goal remained the difference between the two teams till the half-time.

Bumrah created history and bagged 32 wickets in nine innings in the series at a stunning average of 13.06 – the second-lowest for a visiting pacer with minimum 20 wickets in a series in Australia. Just for perspective, the combined bowling average of the other Indian pacers in the series was as high as 34.8.

Bumrah was outstanding with the new ball and dislodged the Australian opening partnership in as many as seven innings in the series. He got rid of Usman Khawaja six times, Nathan McSweeney four times and Steven Smith and Mitchell Marsh thrice in the series. Bumrah beat the batters off 9% of his deliveries and induced an edge off 13.7%.

The SCG Test ended in two and a half days on one of the spiciest pitches ever seen at the venue. The match lasted just 1141 deliveries, making it the shortest Test in Sydney in over 125 years (since 1986)!

Pat Cummins led from the front and was the leading wicket-taker for Australia in the series. His 25 dismissals were the second-most for him in a series after the 29 he took in 2019 Ashes in England.

Cummins wreaked havoc on India’s lower-order in Adelaide before bagging a fifer at The Gabba. He also chipped in with significant contributions with the bat through the series, often rescuing his team from tough situations and putting them in an advantageous position.

His 41 in the second innings in Brisbane lifted Australia from 91/6 to 234, swinging the momentum back in his team’s favour.

Rohit Sharma’s disastrous form with the bat continued as he failed in all the five innings in the series. He could muster just 31 runs and looked completely at sea against all the bowlers. Such was his form that he dropped himself from the playing XI in the final Test in Sydney.

Rohit has been in horrendous form since the home Test against Bangladesh in Chennai in September last year. Since then, he has aggregated just 164 runs in eight matches at a shocking average of 10.93 with just one fifty in this time-frame.

Virat Kohli recorded a hundred at Perth but had nothing to show thereafter in the series. He scored just 190 runs in nine innings at a paltry average of 23.75.

Kohli’s age-old problem of fishing outside the off-stump led to his downfall in the series – he was dismissed in the corridor chasing deliveries on the fifth and sixth stumps on every occasion. Kohli has witnessed a steep decline in his career since 2020 and has an average of just 30.7 in the last five years with just three hundreds in 69 innings.

India, as a unit, were let down by their batters in the series. With the exception of Yashasvi Jaiswal who aggregated 391 runs in 10 innings at an average of 43.4 and Nitish Reddy who scored tough runs in the lower-order in his debut series, the rest of the Indian line-up failed to deliver.

Apart from Rohit and Kohli, Shubman Gill also had a disastrous tour, scoring just 93 runs in five innings with a high of 31. The combined batting average of India’s top 7 was 24.67.

Just for perspective, it was 40.17 in 2018-19 and 35.14 in 2020-21. India registered 150-sub totals in six of their 10 innings in the series.

Travis Head was the leading run-getter of the series with an aggregate of 448 runs in nine innings with two hundreds and a fifty. More than the runs he scored, what really stood out was the rate at which he scored them – Head had a strike rate of 92.56 in the series.

Head’s best knock came in the victorious Pink Ball Test in Adelaide, where he hammered a run-a-ball 140 even as most of the other Australian batters struggled around him. His innings gave Australia a massive first innings lead from where they controlled the match thereafter.

Head again walked out to bat under pressure at 75/3 in the first innings in Brisbane and put together a match-changing 241-run stand with Steven Smith. His 152 off just 160 deliveries demoralized the Indian bowling attack and took Australia to a massive 445 in the first innings.

Head attacked 42.8% of the deliveries he faced in the series, which was the highest such percentage for any batter. Just for perspective777sm, number two on this list was Jaiswal with an attack percentage of 25.5%.