Border-Gavaskar Trophy 2027 — Every Test, Every Venue, and Why This One Matters

Australia in India, 21 January to 3 March 2027. Five Tests, five cities, six weeks, and a trophy Australia are defending in India for the first time in over a decade.

There are series you watch, and there are series you go to. The Border-Gavaskar Trophy has been the second of those for thirty years, and the 2027 edition in India has more riding on it than most.

Here is everything that is confirmed, what happened last time, and what to do with the three weeks of daylight that sit between the five Tests.

The 2027 schedule

Five Tests across six weeks, from Nagpur in the third week of January to Ahmedabad in the first days of March.

Six weeks end to end, and roughly 2,800 miles of travel between the five grounds if you follow the whole thing. That is part of why almost nobody does, and part of why it is worth doing properly.

Why this series matters

The Border-Gavaskar Trophy was first contested in 1996/97 and is named for two men who between them defined a generation of Test cricket: Allan Border, Australia's captain through the rebuild of the 1980s, and Sunil Gavaskar, the first batsman in history to pass 10,000 Test runs.

Thirty years on, it has become the closest thing modern Test cricket has to a second Ashes, and for long stretches of the last decade a better contest than the first one.

The record after seventeen series

India lead comfortably, but the shape of that lead tells the real story. India have historically been close to unbeatable at home and beatable away; Australia the reverse. The series that broke the pattern, India's 2018/19 and 2020/21 wins in Australia, are among the most celebrated Test campaigns either country has produced.

Every series, 1996/97 to 2024/25

What happened last time

The 2024/25 series in Australia was five Tests, and it began about as badly for the hosts as it could have. India won the opening Test at Perth by 295 runs.

Australia then won at Adelaide, Melbourne and Sydney to take the series 3-1 under Pat Cummins, their first Border-Gavaskar Trophy since 2014/15, and the end of a run in which India had held it for four consecutive series across nearly a decade.

The individual performance of the series belonged to the losing side. Jasprit Bumrah took 32 wickets at an average of 13.06, the most by an Indian bowler in any away series, beating Bishan Singh Bedi's 31 from the 1977/78 tour of Australia. Pat Cummins was next with 25. One of the great fast-bowling campaigns in a beaten team.

So Australia arrive in 2027 as holders, defending a trophy in India that they have not won on Indian soil since 2004/05.

The storylines going in

Australia are holders, and that is rarer than it sounds. Before 2024/25 they had not won the trophy since 2014/15. Winning it in India is a different problem again: their last series victory there was more than twenty years ago.

India's home fortress has a crack in it. For twelve years India did not lose a Test series at home. That ended in late 2024, when New Zealand won 3-0 in India, the first time India had been whitewashed in a home series of three or more Tests. Whatever happens in 2027, the assumption that India simply do not lose at home no longer holds.

Guwahati is the newest Test ground in India. The Barsapara stadium in Assam, officially the Dr. Bhupen Hazarika Cricket Stadium, has been open since 2017 but only staged its first Test match in November 2025, against South Africa. The 2027 series will bring it its first Border-Gavaskar Test. It is also the leg of this tour that looks least like the others: the north-east is a different India altogether, tea country, hills, a slower register.

Five Tests, not four. This is a longer series than most editions in India, which have usually been four. More cricket, more travel, and more chance of a series that turns late.

The five cities

Nagpur sits almost exactly at the geographic centre of India, the country's orange capital, and the gateway to the central tiger reserves. Jamtha, where the ground is, is a little way out of the city proper.

Chennai and Chepauk. The MA Chidambaram Stadium is one of the oldest continuously used international grounds in the country, and a Chennai crowd is among the most knowledgeable in India. Hot, coastal, and the food is among the best on the subcontinent.

Guwahati, on the Brahmaputra, is the gateway to the north-east, and the Barsapara ground holds around 46,000, bigger than most people expect of a venue that has staged only one Test. Assam's tea estates start within an hour of the city. If you only add one thing to this trip, add time here.

Ranchi, in Jharkhand, is MS Dhoni's home city, and the JSCA complex was built in part on the back of what he did for cricket in the state. Green, hilly, and well off the standard tourist route.

Ahmedabad and the Narendra Modi Stadium, the largest cricket ground in the world, holding around 130,000. Whatever you think of a stadium that size, watching a Test there is an experience without parallel.

One practical thing worth knowing about Ahmedabad: Gujarat is a dry state and largely vegetarian, and only a small number of hotels are licensed to serve alcohol or non-vegetarian food. Six nights is a long time to discover that on arrival, so we say it up front.

The three weeks in between

Here is the thing most people miss about a five-Test series in India: the gaps are the trip.

Between the Tests there are three windows of between two and seven days, and in every case you have to fly from one Test city to the next anyway. Nagpur to Chennai. Chennai to Guwahati. Guwahati to Ranchi. Ranchi to Ahmedabad. Those flights are not optional and they are not included in anyone's match package.

So the question is not whether to spend money getting between cities. It is whether you would rather do it in a single day via a connection, or route it through somewhere worth stopping.

After Nagpur, Goa. Two nights on the coast on the way to Chennai. The shortest of the breaks and the most straightforward.

After Chennai, the north. The longest window, and the one that justifies itself. Delhi, Agra, Ranthambore, Jaipur: the Golden Triangle plus a tiger reserve, delivered into Guwahati for the third Test. Seven days.

After Guwahati, Kolkata. Two nights in the most literary, most argumentative, most cricket-obsessed city in India, en route to Ranchi.

After Ranchi, Mumbai. Two nights before the final Test in Ahmedabad.

None of these are bolt-ons to a cricket trip. They are the connecting journeys, with somewhere worth being at the other end.

And one more thing, if the fixtures fall right

England tour Bangladesh in February 2027 for two Tests.

Guwahati and Sylhet are roughly 350 kilometres apart, either side of one border.

The Bangladesh fixture dates have not yet been announced. When they are, we will know whether the two can be joined, and whether it is possible to watch Australia play India in Assam and England play Bangladesh in the tea country of Sylhet on the same trip.

If it works, it is not a tour anybody else will be selling. We will say more the moment the dates are published, and they will appear on our future England cricket tours page as soon as they do.

How we do this

There is no fixed departure, no coach party and no tour manager. You choose which Tests you want, where you stay, how long you stay and what you do in between. Take one Test. Take all five. Take the cricket and skip the tigers, or the other way round.

We handle the match tickets, the hotels, the internal flights and the ground transfers, and you get every document in advance and a trip app in your pocket.

We are a fully bonded UK tour operator. Your money is protected.

Read more about the country in our India destination guide, or start building the trip itself.

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