5 reasons why Border-Gavaskar Trophy 2001 remains as India's best Test series ever

#3 Winning match after following-on

It was the era of Australian dominance in world Cricket. A team full of match-winners, Australian Cricket was at its peak when they toured India in 2001. Meanwhile, things weren’t going good for Indian Cricket. There was much instability in the team after the match-fixing scandal broke out and given the circumstances, expectations were not high that India will be able to win the series.

India lost the first Test in Mumbai after a dismal performance. The moral and confidence of the players were low. However, it was a splendid turnaround in the second test at Eden Gardens which no one saw coming.

Australia put up a mammoth total of 445 on the board in first innings. Indian batting line-up collapsed and they were dismissed for a meagre 171. Asked to follow-on, Indian batsmen led by Laxman and Dravid, a partnership about which we’ll talk in the next slide, put up a big total of 384 for Australia to chase after declaring the innings at 657 for 7.

The combination of a magical bowling spell by Harbhajan Singh and heroic batting performance by Laxman and Dravid helped India register a win. The victory was emphatic as it was only the third time a team had won a test match after following on.