Jasprit Bumrah had a sensational Border-Gavaskar trophy. The Indian star pacer toiled hard and ended up with 32 wickets in the series. Bumrah was the biggest reason for India’s winning the first and only Test in their trip to Australia for the five-match series. While the series went Australia’s way by 3-1, Bumrah was rightly adjudged the Player of the Series award winner.
Bumrah broke the record for most wickets by an Indian player in an away bilateral series as he went past Bishan Singh Bedi’s 31 dismissals during the 1977/78 Test series against Australia.
He has now emulated an unwanted record of Sachin Tendulkar in the Border-Gavaskar series, which was first played in 1996/97. Bumrah has become the second Indian player to win the Player of the Series award after losing the series.
Sachin was the Player of the Series in Australia’s 3-0 win at home in 1999/2000 as he had scored 278 runs in six innings at an average of 46.33 with one century and two half-tons. Notably, Tendulkar was the third-highest run-scorer in the series behind Ricky Ponting (375) and Justin Langer (289).
While these two Indians won the POTS award in a losing cause, Pat Cummins is the only Australian to get the honour after his team lost the Border-Gavaskar series. He was named the Player of the series in India’s famous 2-1 win in Australia in 2020/21. Cummins was the leading-wicket-taker in that series as he had 21 scalps in eight innings.
India lost the BGT 2024/25 by 3-1 as the Aussies won the Sydney Test. India gave a target of 162 but without their talisman Bumrah, it was always going to be tough for the visitors. The Aussies were hit with a few mini blows, but Travis Head and debutant Beau Webster made them cross the finishing line with six wickets in hand.
With this, Australia have ended their 10-year-long wait for a Border-Gavaskar trophy. The last time Australia won the trophy was in 2014/15 when the Steve Smith-led Australian team defeated MS Dhoni‘s Indian team 2-0 in a four-match series, where Virat Kohli captained for the final Test with Dhoni leading in the first three ones.
