Nagpur city will be competing to host a Test match for the first time in more than five years. Pat Cummins’ Australia will be visiting India in February or March next year for the high-profile Border-Gavaskar four-match serie. The remaining Tests are also expected to be held at Chennai, Ahmedabad, and Dharamsala. The World Test Championship (WTC) cycle’s second instalment will conclude with these four games for India, making the series crucial.
Six Test matches have been played at VCA Jamtha Stadium so far, and India has won four of them. India lost to South Africa by an innings and six runs in the 2009–10 Test series, while one of the matches against England resulted in a draw.
Nagpur, which was left out during the two years of the COVID-19 pandemic, is poised to receive one of the Test matches per to the BCCI’s rotation mechanism. In December 2017–18, the city last hosted a Test match against Sri Lanka.
Given that Bengaluru hosted a Test match against Sri Lanka earlier this year, it is thought that Australia would most likely begin the series in either Nagpur, Chennai, or Hyderabad.
The BCCI has hosted eight Test matches following the COVID-19-induced break, including four against England in 2021 (Chennai and Ahmedabad), two against New Zealand (Kanpur and Mum-bai), and two against Sri Lanka.