India's Gabba Test Win, On This Day: Indian cricket witnessed one of its memorable days and a historic victory as Rishabh Pant hit that boundary down the ground to give his team a famous series win in Australia.

India defeated Australia by three wickets to clinch the four-match Test series 2-1 as the victory which is regarded as one for the ages etched its name in the history books forever.

It was an almost impossible turnaround that India managed to make after the humiliating defeat in the first Test in Adelaide on the back of 36 all-out.

 

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With the unavailability of star batter and captain Virat Kohli and the injury to Mohammed Shami, the wounded Indian team headed to Melbourne for the second Test under the leadership of Ajinky Rahane.

The middle-order batter led from the front and scored a memorable ton to help his team bounce back to make it 1-1.

 

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The series went on to take a disappointing phase for the visitors when it came to the availability of the players for the remaining matches as injuries hit the Indian camp badly.

The iconic Sydney Cricket Ground was as usual to bring challenges for the Indian team as Steve Smith found his touch and smashed a century to keep his side ahead.

Chasing a huge target, India were in all sorts of trouble when Ravichandran Ashwin and Hanuma Vihari joined each other in the middle with both players struggling with respective injury issues.

Vihari played a phenomenal innings of an unbeaten 161-ball 23, while Ashwin contributed 39* off 128 balls.

Their unbroken partnership of 62 runs proved to be the game-changer as they snuffed out Australia's chances of winning and helped India save the contest. The stand was not about scoring runs; it was about survival, about saving the game one ball at a time.

It was all up to the Gabba in Brisbane to decide the winner of the series, a fortress that hadn't been breached by any visiting team for the last 32 years.

The Rahane-led side had no relief from injury concerns as they were forced to introduce new faces in the deciding game.

Australia batted first and posted 369 in the first innings, thanks to a brilliant century by Marnus Labuschagne.

In reply, India was struggling at 186/6 before Shardul Thakur and Washington Sundar put up a fight to help the visitors pull within range of the Australian total.

The duo added 123 for the seventh wicket as Team India finished on 336, trailing the Aussies by only 33 runs. Australia then tallied 294 in their second essay, setting the Indians a daunting target of 328 for victory.

 

The Historic Day at Gabba, Brisbane

It all came to the final day of the series at the Gabba with senior bater Rohit Sharma departing early as India's hopes took a massive dive.

However, it was once again up to the veteran batter Cheteshwar Pujara to bail the team out of trouble.

Pujara put up a fighting partnership of 114 runs with young Shubman Gill as the duo made it a comfort at once for the runs.

Gill was so unfortunate to miss out on what would've been a historic Test century as he was undone by Nathan Lyon on 91.

Skipper Rashane was quick to show attacking intent with his 22-ball 24 runs but was dismissed by Pat Cummins.

Rishabh Pant joined Pujara in the middle as the duo watched out the most crucial phase of the match and added crucial 61 runs for the fourth wicket.

Pujara, in the meantime, scored yet another fifty on the Australian soil, the slowest one but one of his most important ones.

He was soon dismissed by Cummins for 56 runs but Pant kept going at his pace at the other end.

Pant put up a short but important 37-run stand for the fifth wicket with Mayank Agarwal who scored just nine runs.

Sundar once again put up a crucial contribution of 22 runs before getting dismissed but the rest of the job was done by Pant who ended up playing a historic knock of unbeaten 89 runs and took India to a famous win.

It was India's second consecutive Test series win in Australia after pulling off a similar 2-1 victory in the 2018-19 tour.