India's 6 greatest away victories in Test cricket since 2000

The Indian Test team has produced some famous victories in overseas grounds, right from the time Sunil Gavaskar and Dilip Vengsarkar have played. They have managed to produce some great upsets to teams playing on their home grounds, creating some historic games and memories for all to remember.

Here’s a compilation of 6 of India’s greatest away Test wins.

6. First Test, India in South Africa (Johannesburg, 2006)

South Africa clean bowled

India have never lost a Test match to South Africa at the Wanderers. They have a win and 3 draws playing here. This particular Test match belonged to the bowlers, in general, and to Indian pacer Sreesanth in particular. No batsmen got a hundred, the highest run-scorer being Ashwell Prince who scored 97 in the final innings when South Africa were chasing 402 to win and fell 124 runs short.

Man of the match S Sreesanth took 8 wickets for 99, on a damp pitch that was really helpful for the bowlers. Even Pollock and Ntini had a good run, and they took 7 and 6 wickets respectively.

The batsmen had to deal with some crazy bounce and swing, which explains why India’s best trio Sourav, Sachin and Dravid (who was captain that time) were the top scorers in the first innings – 51*, 44 and 32 respectively.

The South Africans who batted next were dismissed for a paltry 84, Sreesanth doing the damage claiming half the side- using the pitch to produce some dangerous swing that really troubled the batsmen. India’s first innings total of 249 suddenly started looking like a tremendous effort on their part and way past a competitive total.

The 2nd innings saw the master of the 2nd innings coming to India’s rescue – none other than VVS Laxman who made a gritty 73 to take India past 200 while wickets kept tumbling on the other end. It was in this innings that Sreesanth, the player most seen in the match, did his dancing act after hitting Andre Nel out of the park after some words were exchanged between them.

South Africa’s chase of 402 began dismally when Gibbs gave a simple catch to Sachin without the scoring opened. Sreesanth claimed 3 this time-Smith, Amla and Kallis, all of whom he had dismissed in the 1st innings as well.

Prince and Pollock did try and get South Africa to the highest total of the match, but it was no good to win the match that was lost then itself when South Africa were dislodged in the 1st innings. On the other hand, a complete team effort saw India win the game, and even Zaheer and Kumble ended with 5 wickets each.

5. Third Test, Border-Gavaskar Trophy (Perth, 2008)

Spinners domination on fast Perth pitch

This was a win that followed the one at Sydney that Australia won. It involved some real controversies about the umpiring decisions as well as the famous monkey-gate incident. India were 2-0 down in the series and there were talks of them boycotting the series and heading home. But skipper Anil Kumble regrouped his boys for the Perth Test and the rest is history.

India posted 330 batting first, helped Dravid and Sachin’s partnership 139 for the 3rd wicket. Day 2 saw India coming in to bat again as Australia were dismissed cheaply for 212 with RP Singh doing some real damage with 4 wickets to his name. The Indian innings that followed was controlled by the maestro of the 2nd innings himself – VVS Laxman, who top scored with 79 and hung around with Dhoni and RP Singh to get in some useful runs.

Australia needed 413 in the last innings to win, and though they started off well, couldn’t make it, although they got the highest total of the match (340), it was still 72 runs short. Clarke did hang around for his 81 and Mitchell Johnson chipped in with a half-century, but that simply wasn’t enough. Ishant Sharma too bowled that epic spell to Ricky Ponting in this innings, which will be remembered for a long time to come.

A draw was out of the question as the Aussies had started batting in their 2nd innings on day 3 itself. It was either do or die for them.

The Indian camp finally heaved a sigh of relief when Shaun Tait was bold on an RP Singh delivery. He took 6 wickets in the game and was the highest wicket taker for the visitors. Irfan Pathan got Man of the match for his all-round performance. He scored 28 and 46 with the bat and got 2 and 3 wickets with the ball in the 2 innings respectively.

It was an emotional victory as could be seen by the fact that Harbhajan Singh came running out with the tricolor in his hands to celebrate the win.

4. Third Test, India in England (Leeds, 2002)

Leeds captured

This win came under the captaincy of Sourav Ganguly. Dravid was Man of the match. Sachin was the top scorer with 193 for the one time that India batted. Kumble finished with 7 wickets in the match. With so many performances from India’s greats, it was no wonder that they won by an innings and 46 runs. Sanjay Bangar impressed with his all-round performance, scoring 68 with the bat and getting 2 wickets in the 3rd and final innings of the match.

India declared after posting a first innings total of 628 with over 2 days of batting and tiring out the English fielders. Sachin, Sourav and Dravid all got magnificent hundreds, and there were three gigantic partnerships- 170 for the 2nd wicket, and around 150 for the 3rd and the 4th wicket each.

The English pacers – Hoggard, Flintoff, Caddick and Tudor or even spinner Ashley Giles-nobody was effective in stopping the Indian batting that took the game away from them. They now had the daunting task of batting for the three days left in the Test match.

They were 9 down on the same day itself following the collapse triggered by Michael Vaughan’s wicket who played well for his 61 and got out to Agarkar to give him his first fruit of the match. England then lost 5 wickets in a span of 55 runs, and it was Alec Stewart whose heroics enabled them to cross 200.

He remained unbeaten on 78. Following on, England needed to make 355 to make India bat again. Nasser Hussain played a captain’s knock of 110, while Alec Stewart who once again played well, gave him company in an 117-run stand that made the game enter the 5th day.

But that wasn’t enough to prevent an innings defeat, as Kumble struck gold on the last day as he dismissed both of them in consecutive overs. The game ended when he got Caddick to give a catch to skipper Ganguly, thus giving a perfect end to the game that India won in style.

3. Second Test, Border-Gavaskar Trophy (Adelaide 2003)

Dravid’s Test

This was a famous victory, and I am sure most of the readers remember it. You can see this Test match any number of times over, and still it will be as good as the first time. Ganguly was the winning captain, but it won’t be wrong to say that Dravid owned the match, and no wonder he was the Man of the match.

That after Ricky Ponting got 242 in the 1st innings and Australia posted 556 batting first. The Indian reply started off sluggishly, with 4 wickets down for just 85 when Dravid and Laxman took the crease. What followed was a historic partnership, and when Laxman got out after scoring 148, the score was already 388.

Dravid still hung in there, and was the last to get out, but only after the Indian total had amounted to 523. This happened before lunch on Day 4 and the match was clearly headed for a draw.

But the Indians were more inspired than to be content with a draw. Agarkar, in particular, was bowling some good deliveries, and he sent back Langer and Ponting before lunch. Tendulkar, who had disappointed with the bat, did some real damage with the ball with wickets of Damien Martyn and Steve Waugh after lunch, both of them giving their catches to Dravid.

The collapse of the tail happened quick it started when Gilchrist departed at the total of 183 and finished when MacGill fell at 196, Agarkar returning to clean the tail and ending the innings with figures of 6/41.

India started their chase before the end of the day itself. Day 5 saw both openers Aakash Chopra and Sehwag departing early, and once again Dravid was the standout in the Indian batting. He arrived at 79/2 and saw India home by hitting the winning runs some 140 runs later. India had won the game by 4 wickets, crafting one of their most famous and hard-earned overseas wins.

2. Second Test, Trent Bridge (Nottingham 2007)

Zaheer Khan’s in-swinging deliveries got rid of England

After the first drawn Test at Lords, the Indians came out stronger in the second Test, bowling out England for 198 in the first innings with Alistair Cook being the highest scorer with 43. Zaheer Khan turned the heat on taking four wickets in the first innings.

India came out and looked confident from the word go with the top five batsmen scoring fifties. They scored 481 and had a lead of 283. England came out a better team in the second innings but were only able to score 355 with only Michael Vaughan scoring a century.

Zaheer ripped through the English in the second innings as well taking 5 wickets and giving a modest total of 73 to chase which India duly completed in just 21 overs to take a 1-0 lead in the series. Zaheer was rightly named the man of the match for his 9 wickets in the match and almost bowling England out of the match. This match also saw Dinesh Karthick open and put up considerable scores on the board with scores of 77 and 22.

India went on to draw the last game at the Oval to win the series 1-0.

1. Second Test, P Sara Oval, Colombo (August 2015)

Kohli’s first win as a Test captain

Angelo Mathews would have wanted to give Kumar Sangakkara the perfect send-off in his final Test match at Colombo but it was not to be, as India pulled off one of its most convincing Test wins in a long time. Riding on a first innings hundred from KL Rahul, India looked confident coming out to bowl on the second day. Sri Lanka looked in the dumps as they lost early wickets, but a confident Mathews scored a century to bring them closer to India’s first innings total.

KL Rahul was not able to emulate his first innings form as he fell cheaply for 2 but Ajinkya Rahane who had been promoted to No. 3 for this match showed why is one of our best batsmen abroad, scoring a patient 126 off 243 balls and also put up a 140 run partnership with Murali Vijay for the second wicket. With over 400 runs to get on the last day, the Sri Lankan batsmen folded like a pack of cards against the Indian bowlers.

Falling one after another, the wickets of Sangakkara and Angelo Mathews paved the way for a huge Indian victory as the tail just withered away under the pressure.

Ashwin with five wickets and Mishra with three pecked away at the Sri Lankan batting order not allowing partnerships to spring up. Ashwin was once again successful against Sangakkara to claim his wicket for the fourth time in as many innings. Sri Lanka collapsed, losing their last 6 wickets for 45 runs. This can be considered one of India’s greatest Test wins and is also Virat Kohli’s first win as India’s test captain.