India and Australia are gearing up for the all-important Border-Gavaskar Test series which is scheduled to kick off from February 9. The four-match Test series is expected to bring forth high-voltage dramas which will see the bigwigs of both the nations battling out for the coveted trophy.
While umpteen records are expected to be busted in the much anticipated slugfest, India's batting juggernauts Virat Kohli and Cheteshwar Pujara are on threshold to achieve a big milestone in the four-match contest.
Kohli and Pujara, the two batting specialists of India's Test setup have amassed a total of 1893 runs and 1682 runs in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy so far. If Pujara manages to add 107 more runs against his name and Kohli 218 runs, the star duo will enter the an elite club of aggregating 2000-run in the Border-Gavaskar series.
The elusive record are only against the names of bigwigs like Sachin Tendulkar, Ricky Ponting, Rahul Dravid, and Michael Clarke, who have recorded more than 2000 runs in the series. Among active batters, Pujara and Kohli are the highest run-getters in the marquee series.
Let's have a looka the list of most run getters in the Border-Gavaskar series so far:
Sachin Tendulkar: 3262 runs in 65 innings (34 matches)
Ricky Ponting: 2555 runs in 51 innings (29 matches)
VVS Laxman: 2434 runs in 54 innings (29 matches)
Rahul Dravid: 2143 runs in 60 innings (32 matches)
Michael Clarke: 2049 runs in 40 innings (22 matches)
Cheteshwar Pujara: 1893 runs in 37 innings (20 matches)
Virat Kohli: 1682 runs in 36 innings (20 matches)
Talking about Kohli, he will be looking to end his three-year-long Test century drought as he desperately looking to crack his 28th ton in the longest format of the game, given his red-hot form in the other two formats (ODIs and T20Is). Meanwhile, Pujara has again proved his batting prowess after being dropped from India's Test set-up following his lean patch with the bat. He resurrected his batting after grinding out in County Cricket and is expected to go all guns blazing in the four-match Test series against Australia.
Border Gavaskar Trophy 2023 schedule:
1st Test at Vidarbha Cricket Association Stadium, Nagpur - February 9-13
2nd Test at Arun Jaitley Stadium, Delhi - February 17-21
3rd Test at Himachal Pradesh Cricket Association Stadium, Dharamsala - March 1-5
4th Test at Narendra Modi Stadium, Ahmedabad - March 9-13
India’s squad for the first two Tests vs Australia: Rohit Sharma (c), KL Rahul (vc), Shubman Gill, Cheteshwar Pujara, Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, KS Bharat (wk), Ishan Kishan (wk), Ravichandran Ashwin, Axar Patel, Kuldeep Yadav, Ravindra Jadeja, Mohammed Shami, Mohammed Siraj, Umesh Yadav, Jaydev Unadkat, Suryakumar Yadav.
Australia Test squad for India tour: Pat Cummins (capt), Ashton Agar, Scott Boland, Alex Carey, Cameron Green, Peter Handscomb, Josh Hazlewood, Travis Head, Usman Khawaja, Marnus Labuschagne, Nathan Lyon, Lance Morris, Todd Murphy, Matthew Renshaw, Steve Smith, Mitchell Starc, Mitchell Swepson, David Warner.
