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=Australia tour of India, 2023=
==ODIs==
===3rd ODI, Indore: India wins===
[https://epaper.timesgroup.com/article-share?article=25_01_2023_016_001_cap_TOI  Gaurav Gupta, January 25, 2023: ''The Times of India'']

[[File: Scoreboard- Australia vs India, 2022- 3rd ODI, Indore.jpg|Scoreboard- Australia vs India, 2022- 3rd ODI, Indore <br/> From: [https://epaper.timesgroup.com/article-share?article=25_01_2023_016_001_cap_TOI  Gaurav Gupta, January 25, 2023: ''The Times of India'']|frame|500px]]


Indore : On Monday morning, some of the Indian players visited the Mahakaleshwar temple in nearby Ujjain to pray for Rishabh Pant’s fast recovery. Perhaps they should also have prayed for some mercy for the Kiwi bowlers, who have been found wanting on this tour. 

 India’s openers were simply on fire, with Rohit Sharma and Shubman Gill slamming superb centuries to pulverize a clueless New Zealand attack on a belter at the Holkar Stadium in the third ODI.

Their 212-run opening stand in just 157 balls was India’s highest partnership for the first wicket against the Kiwis in ODIs. With Rohit and Gill destoying the bowling after being put in to bat, at one point it even seemed India could scale ‘Mount 500’ for the first time in ODIs. A mini-collapse, though, slowed them down, before a typically belligerent half-century by the explosive Hardik Pandya (54; 38b, 3x4, 3x6), and his 54-run alliance in 34 balls for the seventh wicket with Shardul Thakur (25 off 17 balls), took India to 385/9. 

 Showing why he is rated among the top openers in world cricket, Devon Conway then cracked a brilliant 138, getting to three figures off just 71 balls. But India, spearheaded by a Shardul Thakur burst (3/45 in 6 overs), managed to bowl out New Zealand for 295 in 41. 2 overs. 

 Having won all the six ODIs it has played at this venue, India can claim that the Holkar Stadium, a high-scoring venue, is its fortress.

The convincing 90-run victory helped India regain the No. 1 ranking in ODIs as the hosts pulled off a 3-0 clean sweep. The T20I leg begins in Ranchi.

With India resting regular pacers Mohammed Shami and Mohammed Siraj, Pandya provided India with the perfect start when he had Finn Allen playing the ball on to his stumps for a two-ball duck. Conway, however, kept the Kiwis in the hunt, adding 106 off 87 balls for the second wicket with Henry Nicholls (42 off 40 balls), and then 78 for the third wicket with Daryl Mitchell (24). 

Thakur stepped up at the right time, ripping the heart out of New Zealand’s innings when he dismissed Mitchell, skipper Tom Latham and Glen Phillips in quick succession. When Conway hit Umran Malik straight to Rohit at mid-wicket, and the dangerous Michael Bracewell (26) was stumped off a wide down the legside off Kuldeep Yadav (3-62), the game was done and dusted. 

On the eve of the match, India coach Rahul Dravid had joked that as soon as they landed in Indore, all the bowlers shied away from bowling on the flat pitch here. The small ground adds to the bowlers’ woes. India’s innings, incidentally, included 33 fours and a record 19 sixes. 

India’s momentum was broken when Rohit, going for another big one, was bowled by Michael Bracewell, and Gill was caught at point while mistiming a cut off Blair Tickner. Ishan Kishan (17) sacrificed his wicket for Kohli and was run out, Virat Kohli (36 off 27 balls) spooned Duffy to mid-off, while Suryakumar Yadav (14) mistimed his trademark flick to long on to Duffy as well. 

However, Pandya’s strong forehands, resembling that of a tennis player, fetched him a few sixes. With Thakur chipping in with little cameo, India were back on the fast track. 

It will take a while for the Kiwi bowlers to erase this brutal hammering. Playing just his third ODI, Jacob Duffy picked up three wickets but ended up conceding 100 in his 10 overs. Blair Tickner too took three but his 10 over quota went for 76.


==Tests==
===5th Test, Ahmedabad: draw match===
[https://epaper.timesgroup.com/article-share?article=14_03_2023_021_016_cap_TOI  Ehtesham Hasan, March 14, 2023: ''The Times of India'']

[[File: Scoreboard, 5th Test match, Ahmedabad- Draw match.jpg|Scoreboard, 5th Test match, Ahmedabad- Draw match <br/> From: [https://epaper.timesgroup.com/article-share?article=14_03_2023_021_016_cap_TOI  Ehtesham Hasan, March 14, 2023: ''The Times of India'']|frame|500px]]


Ahmedabad : The fifth day’s play in the fourth Test of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy between India and Australia was a logical extension of the first four days. The bat continued to hold sway with Australia declaring their second innings at 175 for 2. The declaration came 10 minutes and two overs before the final hour. Both captains then decided to call off the match. 

 Opener Travis Head (90) and his overnight partner Matthew Kuhnemann (6) were the two batsmen dismissed. The former was cleaned up by Axar Patel and the latter was leg-before to R Ashwin, who took his series’ tally of wickets to 25. 

 Marnus Labuschagne belatedly, helped himself to his first fifty of the series (63). He and stand-in skipper Steve Smith (10) were the not out batsmen. There was hardly any interest left in the match once news broke about India qualifying for the World Test Championship Final after New Zealand beat Sri Lanka by two wickets off the last ball of the Test in Christchurch. The rest of the final day’s play resembled more than anything the fourth day of a domestic match with nothing at stake. There were more security personnel patrolling the Narendra Modi Stadium than fans. 

 That said, there were many takeaways from the 2-1 series win for India. The biggest plus was Virat Kohli scoring his long overdue 28th Test ton. The premier India batsman showed great powers of concentration to bat for 516 minutes for his 186 in testing conditions to help his team take the first-innings lead. 
 Kohli, after scoring two back-toback hundreds in the ODIs against Sri Lanka earlier this year, and now a Testhundred, appears to have got into the habit of scoring centuries again.  

It augurs well for India as they eye the WTC crown and the ODI World Cup at home later this year. 

 “I don’t think there was any monkey on his back. When you are around a player like that, and when you see how they go about their business, you don’t feel that kind of thing going in his head,” said captain Rohit Sharma about Kohli finally breaking his more three-year Test century drought.  “He has played more than hundred Tests now. He’s got so many runs, so many hundreds. So, for a player like him, it is about a few innings here and there. We saw that in white-ball cricket as well. From Asia Cup, when he got that hundred (against Afghanistan), he never looked back. And I hope it is going to be the same with the red ball as well,” Sharma said. 

 Another performance that would have gladdened the team is the quality shown by Shubman Gill. The 23-year-old has answered the doubting Thomases by scoring a classic 128 after almost spending two days in the sun chasing leather. “It’s been a really exciting 4-5 months for Shubman, just breaking into the T20I side and scoring a hundred. Doing the same in Oneday cricket and then capping that off with good performances in the last two Tests. It is really exciting for a young player to come through,” said coach Rahul Dravid.


===India wins test, series===
[https://epaper.timesgroup.com/article-share?article=20_02_2023_019_017_cap_TOI  Arani Basu, February 20, 2023: ''The Times of India'']

[[File: India retains Border- Gavaskar Trophy, 2023- India vs Australia.jpg|India retains Border- Gavaskar Trophy, 2023- India vs Australia <br/> From: [https://epaper.timesgroup.com/article-share?article=20_02_2023_021_009_cap_TOI  February 20, 2023: ''The Times of India'']|frame|500px]]

'''See graphic''':

'' India retains Border- Gavaskar Trophy, 2023- India vs Australia ''

New Delhi : Australia’s spirit fizzled out in just 19. 1 overs on the third day of the second Test at the Kotla. In about 90 minutes of absolute bizarre batting against high-quality spin of Ravindra Jadeja and R Ashwin, Australia were shot out for 113, turning an intriguing Test match into a lopsided affair as India chased down the 114-run target with six wickets to spare to go 2-0 up in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy.

In comparison to the preceding Test in Nagpur, Australia had a field day of sorts on the first two days here. But then there was Jadeja waiting to re-introduce them to the house of horror on a wicked third-day Indian pitch. For the second time in the series, he exploited the glaring technical inadequacies of Aussie batsmen to return career-best figures of 7/42 with Ashwin claiming 3/59.  For a brief while it seemed the Australian batters had learnt to play in spinning conditions as they got ahead by 62 runs by the end of Day Two. 

Surprisingly, they gave away the advantage all too quickly on Sunday morning, resorting to a premeditated-sweep-only tactic the moment Ashwin found the outside edge of Travis Head in the first over of the day. Jadeja and Ashwin, ever ready to pounce on their prey in home conditions, were not going to relent without devouring the sitting ducks. 

 As Cheteshwar Pujara capped his 100th Test by dispatching Todd Murphy to theboundary to finish proceedings at the Kotla, India retained the Border-Gavaskar Trophy and all but sealed their spot in the World Test Championship final to be played in June. 

 “There were times Jadeja was put under pressure but there was no sense of panic. He just kept relying on what he is good at and he kept doing that. He went for more than five runs per over last evening but he knew exactly what the batters were trying to do and was confident to put them under pressure and get them out,” India skipper Rohit Sharma said after the match. 

 It’s well established that Jadeja is an absolute beast with the ball on a pitch that offers a semblance of variable bounce and any degree of turn. The Australians’ regimented mindset didn’t help their cause either. Six of Jadeja’s wickets were either bowled or LBW. In fact, only two Australian batters were caught out. 

 Once Steve Smith fell sweeping to Ashwin and Labuschagne was bowled playing back to a good length delivery from Jadeja that kept low, rest of the Australian batters looked like they were lost in a haunted house. 

 It was obvious Australia didn’t have a Plan B. “In themorning, I just wanted to tell our three spinners to stay calm. We don’t need to change fields as often as we did last evening. We will keep it tight and let batters makethat mistake. I could sense they wanted to keep playing aggressively,” Rohit explained the team plan. 

 This loss is going to sting Australia big time. Havingcapitulated not once but twice in the series, it will be tough for the visitors to get over the psychological scars inflicted on them and make a comeback in the series.