India vs Australia Tests schedule gets major upgrade, CA picks Perth for Border-Gavaskar opener to give IND chin music

India’s tour of Australia 2024-25 will begin on November 22 with the first Test of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy at the Perth Stadium in Perth, announced Cricket Australia on Tuesday.

India, the only team to beat Australia in Australia in consecutive Test series, will start their tour Down Under in Perth for the first time. In the previous two occasions, the first Test of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy was played at the Adelaide Oval.

This time, Adelaide will host the second Test (December 6-10), which will be a Day-Night affair. The third Test is scheduled to begin on December 14 at the Gabba in Brisbane. There were no changes in the venues of the Boxing Day Test and the New Year’s Test with the MCG in Melbourne and SCG in Sydney taking the honours.

The big gap between the first and second Test is kept because the BCCI reportedly wants to play a practice match with the pink ball to get the players accustomed to it before the Adelaide Test. Notably, India were bowled out for their all-time low score of 36 in the second innings of their last pink ball Test in Adelaide.

India vs Australia Border-Gavaskar Trophy 2024-25 full schedule

Why Parth was chosen as the venue for the first Test

Australia have an impeccable record at the new Perth Stadium with a four-out-of-four win ratio. India and Australia had also featured in the debut of this venue back in December 2018 which the hosts won. That was the only Test that Australia had won during that four-match series as India beat them in Adelaide and Melbourne to clinch their maiden Test series victory on Australian soil.

During India’s previous tour, which the visitors won (2-1) against all odds, Perth did not host a single Test.

CA’s head of scheduling, Peter Roach said Perth and Brisbane are the two venues that the Australian team is most comfortable in. The bouncy pitches on offer at these two venues make it hard for the visiting sides. India, however, had beaten Australia at the Gabba during their last tour.

“The clear advice from our national team is that there is a preference to start series strongly at venues where they’re really comfortable and Perth and Brisbane they believe are somewhat comparable in terms of the advantage they get out of that,” Roach was quoted as saying by ESPNCricinfo. “They’re the hardest and bounciest pitches in Australia. They also believe that playing day-night Tests in Adelaide is a significant advantage and the stats there are pretty conclusive too.

“So they will look at this schedule and some will say Gabba first would have been better than Perth. Others will say Perth then Gabba. I think that gap has really closed in recent times and the way our players think about that, and having Adelaide as the day-night Test, they’ll be really buoyed about that again. So we’re really comfortable that this gives us a great opportunity to compete with a really strong Indian team.”

A full house is expected at Perth when the Rohit Sharma-led India side packed with superstars like Virat Kohli, who played only one Test during the last Test, Jasprit Bumrah and Rishabh Pant step on to the field, feels outgoing Western Australia Cricket CEO Christina Matthews.

“I would be looking at crowds of 30-35,000 on day one [for India],” Matthews told ESPNcricinfo. “Getting a space in the calendar is really important. Our preference is the last Test before Christmas. But if it’s the first Test, as we’ve had [the past two years], if we know that’s when it’s going to be then it makes it easier for everybody to plan. If we can know if it’s the first Test of every summer or the third Test every summer, that’s the important thing.”