5 best overseas Test comebacks by the Indian team

#4 Melbourne (MCG), 1981

Kapil Dev and Karsan Ghavri bowled beautifully to bowl out Australia for 83

India’s first two visits to Australia in 1947/48 and 1967/68 were very disappointing. They didn’t win a single Test match in nine attempts. However, the tour of 1977/78 changed things as they competed excellently to narrowly lose the series 3-2.

But when India toured down under in 1980/81, the tour wasn’t going too well. They had only three wins out of 10 ODIs in the Benson & Hedges World Series Cup (involving Australia, New Zealand and India). They had also lost the New Year’s Test by an innings against Australia.

The second Test was drawn with India (who competed well for most part of the Test match) just about managing to scrape through with 2 wickets remaining on the final day.

The third Test was a brilliant match. Leading 1-0 in the series, Australia elected to field first and skittled India out for 237. Only Gundappa Vishwanath could make a significant contribution (114) as Dennis Lillee and Co ran through the Indian batting line-up.

And then Australia drove home the advantage by putting up 419 in their first innings. Trailing by 182 runs, the Indian opening pair of Sunil Gavaskar and Chetan Chauhan batted brilliantly and put on 165 runs for the first wicket. However, a controversial decision of Gavaskar (which almost led to India fortifying the match) triggered a collapse as India were bowled out for 324.

Chasing a modest total of 143 and with a depleted Indian attack (plagued by injuries), Australia were firm favourites to seal the series. But what followed was a brilliant display of fast bowling. Kapil Dev and Karsan Ghavri bowled beautifully to bowl out Australia for 83 to help India end the series 1-1.

Brief Scores: India 237 (Vishwanath 114, Lillee 4/65, Pascoe 3/29) and 324 (Gavaskar 70, Chetan Chauhan 85, Lillee 4/105, Yardley 2/65) beat Australia 419 (Border 124, Walters 78, Dilip Doshi 3/109) and 83 (Walters 18*, Kapil Dev 5/28, Ghavri 2/10)