BGT 2024-25: How middle-order has let India down

Sydney: As the Border-Gavaskar Trophy reaches its climax with the fifth and final Test starting on Friday, India faces an uphill task to level the series, currently trailing 2-1. The Jasprit Bumrah-led attack has kept India competitive, but lack of runs from the middle order has left the team on the back foot.

While rain threatens to overshadow the Sydney finale, the statistics highlight India’s real struggle: batters from No. 3 to No. 7.

Indian openers, led by Yashasvi Jaiswal and KL Rahul (till the Brisbane Test), have outperformed their Australian counterparts, amassing 606 runs at an average of 43.28, including one century and four half-centuries. By contrast, Australia’s openers have managed just 281 runs at 20.07, with only two fifties.

In the lower order (Nos. 7-11), there is little to separate between the two teams. India have scored 586 runs at 23.44 with a century and two fifties, while Australia have tallied 582 runs at 23.28 with one half-century. The middle-order, however, tells a starkly different story.

Australia’s middle-order batters (Nos. 3-6) have been prolific, scoring 939 runs at 33.53 with four centuries and as many fifties. On the other hand, their Indian counterparts have struggled, managing just 463 runs at 17.14 with a lone century. This gulf has been a decisive factor in the series, with India repeatedly failing to recover from poor first innings totals.

The underperformance of India’s star batters -- Shubman Gill (three innings), Virat Kohli (six innings), Rohit Sharma (three), and Rishabh Pant (seven innings) -- has been costly. These players, expected to anchor India’s batting, have faltered, exposing the team to collapses.

"I know we have got to fight it out," head coach Gautam Gambhir to a pointed question on low first-innings totals. "And that's probably one area where we've lacked in this series. And that's the area, that's one of the reasons why probably we lag in this series as well. But again, I think we had a really decent first innings in Melbourne. Hopefully we can take that confidence from there and try and get it to Sydney. We had a decent first innings in Melbourne."

Despite their struggles, Gambhir remains optimistic.

“If batting and bowling hadn’t done well, we wouldn’t have won a Test match or been 2-1 down. We could have been in a worse situation,” he stated.

India’s bowlers have kept them in the series, taking 66 wickets (excluding run-outs) compared to Australia’s 65. However, unless India’s middle-order steps up, salvaging a draw in the series remains a daunting challenge.