The first Test match of the 13th edition of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy saw Australia demolish the hosts by 333 runs in Pune. The Kangaroos managed to seal a Test win in India after 13 long years.
Even though India have never managed to win a Test series Down Under, Australia achieved a win in the Indian subcontinent in the 2004-05 season. And before today’s match, that was the last time they beat the hosts in their own backyard.
It’s been 4,509 days (108,096 hours) since the Aussies registered their last win on Indian shores – that came in Nagpur, thanks to debutant Michael Clarke, who ended the series with 400 runs.
Here are a few things that have happened since the 29th of October 2004, the day when the third Test between India and Australia ended with a disastrous result for the hosts and a first series win in 35 years for the touring party.
1) India and Australia played 23 Tests (head to head). India managed to win on 10 occasions while Australia were the winners eight times with five draws.
2) Anil Kumble, who was the Indian bowling spearhead in the 2004-05 season, went on to take 619 Test wickets. He retired in 2008 and is now the coach of the Indian cricket team.
3) 61 Australian players made their Test debut and nearly 35 announced their retirement since October 2004.
4) India managed to win 11 medals (1 gold, 3 silver and 7 bronze) in the Olympics, compared to only 17 in the previous 104 years.
5) Leicester City FC got relegated, gained promotion, managed to win the Premier League and are now in a relegation battle again. They sacked their coach Claudio Ranieri as well who helped them win the PL.
6) Virat Kohli successfully completed the 10th grade before dropping out post his intermediate schooling to eventually captain team India in all three formats.
7) Pakistan failed to beat India in a World Cup match seven more times.
8) The IPL made its debut in 2008 and took the world by storm. The 10th edition of this extravaganza will see Afghanistan players making their grand debut. One of these players (Rashid Khan) managed to outbid the likes of Martin Guptill and Eoin Morgan.
9) Virender Sehwag is still ruling the roost with his tongue-in-cheek humour, this time on Twitter.
10) The Indian public can no longer buy match tickets using their Rs. 1000 note
11) Rohit Sharma got 21 chances to prove his “talent” in the longer format but sadly failed to capitalise on each and every one of them.
12) Leonardo Di Caprio finally won an Oscar for his performance in The Revenant.
13) Michael Schumacher won the last of his seven F1 Championships in 2004 and since then F1 has seen six new champions in the form of Fernando Alonso, Kimi Raikkonen, Lewis Hamilton, Jenson Button, Sebastian Vettel and Nico Rosberg. Rosberg retired after winning his one and only championship in 2016.
14) Shahid Afridi announced his retirement and returned twice before calling it quits again.
15) Ravindra Jadeja scored three triple centuries in the Ranji Trophy but went on to become one of the most destructive spin bowlers in the Indian team.
16) Mahendra Singh Dhoni made his Test debut, became India’s longest serving captain in Tests and announced his retirement as well.
Amidst such change, one thing has remained constant over the years. Roger Federer picked up his 18th Grand Slam crown when he defeated Rafael Nadal in the finals of the 2017 Australian Open.
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