Hyderabad: India will be up against Australia in the fifth and final Test of the 2024-25 Border Gavaskar Trophy. For Australia, a victory will take them into the World Test Championship (WTC) final while India will need to register a victory to stay in the race to qualify for the title decider.
However, India’s performance at the Sydney Cricket Ground (SCG) goes against them. They have managed to win only one fixture out of their 13 outings. They lost in five matches while seven fixtures ended in a draw.
The recent record of the Indian team at the SCG sticks to the trend as the Indian team has played a draw in their last three matches. Their clash against Australia in 2020-21 witnessed a fifth day of impeccable defence from the Indian duo of Ravichandran Ashwin and Hanuma Vihari who faced more than 100 deliveries. Cheteshwar Pujara displayed an incredible performance in the 2018-19 SCG Test with a knock of 193 runs which ended in a rain-curtailed draw.
The first fixture between India and Australia at the SCG was played in 1948 but ended in a draw as it was hit by the weather. India’s sole win came in 1978 when Erapalli Prasanna took eight wickets which helped visitors by an innings and two runs.
Sachin Tendulkar is India’s leading run-getter at SCG with 785 runs with an average of 157. Anil Kumble is the highest wicket-taker with 20 dismissals with a bowling average of 32.95. Men in Blue posted their highest score at the SCG is 705/7 in 2004 when Tendulkar played a knock of 241 and VVS Laxman scored 178.
