Australia and India renew their fierce rivalry in a four-Test series that begins with a day-night game in Adelaide on Thursday.

India won a Test series for the first time Down Under when the sides clashed two years ago and Australia are determined to regain the Border-Gavaskar Trophy. But India, under Virat Kohli, won’t take a step back.

The win on the last tour has given the team a lot of confidence and with many of the players from the last tour still around, they will take that into the first Test.

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India won’t be intimidated and they have slowly but surely started to become better travellers but their record in Australia over the years hasn’t been a great one.

Here’s a look at every series India has played Down Under:

India's Test record in Australia

Season Winner Margin
1947/48 Australia 4-0 (5)
1967/68 Australia 4-0 (4)
1977/78 Australia 3-2 (5)
1980/81 drawn 1-1 (3)
1985/86 drawn 0-0 (3)
1991/92 Australia 4-0 (5)
1999/00 Australia 3-0 (3)
2003/04 drawn 1-1 (4)
2007/08 Australia 2-1 (4)
2011/12 Australia 4-0 (4)
2014/15 Australia 2-0 (4)
2018/19 India 2-1 (4)

Bucking the trend

A big problem for India on their Australia tours has been their batting. The extra bounce on the Australian pitches made the forward press of most Indian batsmen problematic and often caught them out.

But there were some batsmen who managed to find their feet even in these alien conditions. Sachin Tendulkar tops the run-scoring charts for Indians in Australia and Kohli comes in second.

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Mohinder Amarnath and Ravi Shastri are not part of the table below but they too did pretty well. Amarnath scored 668 runs in 8 matches (13 innings) at an average of 55.66 while Shastri scored 391 runs in 6 matches (7 innings) at an average of 55.85. Of course, 206 of Shastri’s runs came in the course of one innings.

Top 10 Indian batsmen in Australia

Player Mat Runs HS Ave 100 50
SR Tendulkar 20 1809 241* 53.2 6 7
V Kohli 12 1274 169 55.39 6 3
VVS Laxman 15 1236 178 44.14 4 4
R Dravid 15 1143 233 43.96 1 6
V Sehwag 10 948 195 47.4 2 4
SM Gavaskar 11 920 172 51.11 5 1
DB Vengsarkar 16 746 78 28.69 0 4
CA Pujara 7 722 193 55.53 3 2
SC Ganguly 11 696 144 34.8 1 4
GR Viswanath 8 686 114 45.73 1 5

Well bowled

India’s struggles in Australia started with their batting and ended with their bowling. The batsmen struggled with the bounce and so did the bowlers. Long accustomed to pitching it up, India’s bowlers usually failed to make the adjustment quickly enough.

But there were some who managed pretty well. Leading the pack, as expected, is Kapil Dev with 51 wickets at a very fine average of 24.58. He didn’t have much support in the pace bowling department in those days but he did a fine job of shouldering the load.

Top 10 Indian bowlers in Australia

Player Mat Wkts BBI BBM Ave SR
N Kapil Dev 11 51 8/106 8/109 24.58 61.5
A Kumble 10 49 8/141 12/279 37.73 65.3
BS Bedi 7 35 5/55 10/194 27.51 68.3
Mohammed Shami 7 31 6/56 6/136 30.83 50.9
EAS Prasanna 8 31 6/104 8/218 31.12 82.6
I Sharma 13 31 4/41 6/155 48.54 87.9
BS Chandrasekhar 7 29 6/52 12/104 30.27 67.4
AB Agarkar 7 27 6/41 8/160 35.07 58.4
R Ashwin 7 27 4/105 6/149 48.07 94.7
UT Yadav 8 27 5/93 7/176 45.85 60.7
By wickets taken

Special Bumrah

Jasprit Bumrah doesn’t make the list above because he has just played four matches in Australia. But he has taken 21 wickets in those four matches at an average of just 17 – by far the best average of any Indian bowler who has taken more than 20 wickets in Australia.

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There has been talk of how Australia are looking to play him differently but it remains to be seen whether Bumrah is the same bowler too. He is more experienced now and that should be a factor too. It will be interesting to see whether he can follow in the footsteps of Richard Hadlee and Curtly Ambrose to make Australia a happy hunting ground.

Best bowling average in Australia

Player Span Mat Wkts BBI BBM Ave SR
GA Lohmann (ENG) 1887-1892 6 41 8/35 10/87 11.65 43.4
W Barnes (ENG) 1882-1887 10 33 6/28 9/81 15.42 46.3
W Bates (ENG) 1881-1887 15 50 7/28 14/102 16.42 47.2
JJ Bumrah (INDIA) 2018-2019 4 21 6/33 9/86 17 44.9
Sir RJ Hadlee (NZ) 1973-1987 12 77 9/52 15/123 17.83 43.8
CEL Ambrose (WI) 1988-1997 14 78 7/25 10/120 19.79 48.1
Qualification: 20 wkts and more

Stats courtesy ESPNcricinfo