After suffering a humiliating whitewash at home, the chances of the India cricket team claiming a hat-trick of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy (BGT) in Australia look slim. The last two series victories Down Under were special, and to do a three-peat would be historic, but the chances of any such things happening can’t be imagined days after New Zealand beat India 3-0.
WTC Final 2025 Scenario for India
Although Team India moves to BGT, another thing would be on their mind. They’ll look to claim another hat-trick. They’ve reached the last two finals of the World Test Championship (WTC) and would like to do so for the 2023-25 cycle as well. However, to make the WTC Final and not depend on the outcomes of others, Team India needs to win the BGT 4-0.
Aim for the stars, land on the moon
Sunil Gavaskar, the man who the BGT is named after, doesn’t think it’s realistic to aim for the WTC 2025 Final. He instead wants Team India to focus on beating Australia, no matter what the scoreline reads.
“No, I don’t. I actually think that India cannot beat Australia 4-0 in the Test series. I’d be over the moon if they do that. But 4-0? India can win 3-1, 4-0 is… I don’t want to talk about the World Test Championship Final. Now just focus on trying to win the series in Australia. Never mind whether you win 1-0,2-0,3-0, 3-1,2-1. But go and win. Because that is how all of us Indian cricket fans are going to be back to feeling good again,” Gavaskar told India Today.
India’s squad for the BGT 2024-25
Rohit Sharma (c), Jasprit Bumrah (vc), Yashasvi Jaiswal, Abhimanyu Easwaran, Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli, KL Rahul, Rishabh Pant (wk), Sarfaraz Khan, Dhruv Jurel (wk), R Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Mohammed Siraj, Akash Deep, Prasidh Krishna, Harshit Rana, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Washington Sundar
Reserves: Mukesh Kumar, Navdeep Saini, Khaleel Ahmed
