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

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.