Best Border-Gavaskar Trophy Tests: No.6

India play Test No.500 against New Zealand in Kanpur next week, and to mark the occasion, cricket.com.au is counting down the best seven India v Australia Test matches since the Border-Gavankar Trophy was introduced in 1996.

The two nations have played out some absolute classics in those 20 years, and they'll add another chapter to the rivalry when Australia tour India in February.

Best Border-Gavaskar Tests

7) A masterclass from the Little Master

6) An emotional tribute to a lost mate

5) Clarke heroics seal controversial victory

4) Waugh's words spur Dravid to heroic Test

3) Harbhajan the hero as India seal series

2) Injured Laxman the hero in Mohali thriller

6. First Test, Adelaide Oval, 2014

Australia 7-517 declared (Smith 162no, Warner 145, Clarke 128) and 5-290 declared (Warner 102, Smith 52no) beat India 444 (Kohli 115, Pujara 73, Lyon 5-134) and 315 (Kohli 141, Vijay 99, Lyon 7-152) by 48 runs.

While the tragic death of Phil Hughes saw this Test postponed and almost called off entirely, the late dashing batsman could hardly have asked for a more fitting match to be played in his honour.

In the most emotional Test of them all, 22 grieving cricketers played out a captivating contest, with a handful of stunning individual efforts, from both sides, ensuring it would leave a permanent mark on the game’s collective conscious.

Despite battling a severe back injury, one that would eventually play a role in his retirement, Australia skipper Michael Clarke defied medical staff, India’s bowlers and perhaps even himself in compiling one of his most courageous knocks.

His 128 under obvious physical duress, along with centuries to Steve Smith and David Warner, all dedicated to their ‘little mate’ up above, helped the Aussies rack up 517 in their first dig.

But the defiant Virat Kohli, in his first Test as captain following an injury to MS Dhoni, struck a vital hundred of his own to keep India in the game.

And while Warner crashed his second ton of the match to set India 364 to win, as the game rolled into its fifth day, the drop-in Adelaide Oval wicket was showing few signs of any demons.

But this Test, already one that would be never be forgotten by players and spectators alike regardless of its climax, had one more stunning individual effort to unveil.

Nathan Lyon, who’d wrangled out four of India’s top seven in his first-innings five-wicket haul, was now tasked with spinning his side to victory against the finest players of slow-bowling on the planet.

With the knowledge that the criticism most often aimed at him at that stage of his career was that he’d never taken a five-for in the fourth innings of a Test.

Though as Murali Vijay and Kohli took India to 2-242, Lyon’s hopes of ending that run and Australia’s dream of a fairtytale fifth-day victory looked slim.

But after trapping a devastated Vijay lbw for 99, the off-spinner went on to cut a swathe through India’s middle-order.

He then had Kohli, who had anchored the run chase with a century even more impressive than his first-innings effort, caught on the midwicket fence to dramatically change the complexion of the contest.

And when Ishant Sharma became Lyon’s seventh fourth-innings scalp – and 12th for the match – it sparked passionate celebrations from Australia around the ‘408’ inscribed on the Adelaide Oval turf, in turn imprinting Hughes’ Test number in the memories of all those watching.