Border-Gavaskar Trophy 2027: first ball at 3pm in Sydney, noon in Perth

The Border-Gavaskar Trophy 2027 begins in Nagpur at 9.30am local time on Thursday 21 January. If you are in Sydney, Melbourne, Hobart or Canberra, the clock will say 3pm. In Perth it will be noon.

Those four cities, on AEDT, run five and a half hours ahead of India while daylight saving lasts, and it lasts until 4 April 2027, beyond the last day of the series. South Australia is five hours ahead; Queensland, which has no daylight saving, four and a half; the Northern Territory four; Western Australia two and a half. A 9.30am start in India is therefore 2.30pm in Adelaide, 2pm in Brisbane and 1.30pm in Darwin.

Half an hour earlier in Guwahati

One Test breaks the pattern. The BCCI has the third Test, in Guwahati, starting at 9am, which brings the first ball forward to 2.30pm AEDT, 2pm in Adelaide, 1.30pm in Brisbane, 1pm in Darwin and 11.30am in Perth.

Cricket Australia’s site, cricket.com.au, gave a different time in its schedule article of 26 March 2026: 3pm AEDT for all five Tests, Guwahati included. The fixture data behind the site’s own match page for that Test has the earlier start. The Australian times in this article are the magazine’s own conversion of the BCCI’s Indian times, checked against the standard time-zone database.

The BCCI’s release prints no time zone. Its match page for the fourth Test, in Ranchi, gives the start as 4am UTC, which is 9.30am in India, so the published times are Indian ones. The release gives start times only. It does not say when play is scheduled to close.

Twelve clear days between Sydney and Nagpur

Australia go to India after a home series against New Zealand: four Tests from Perth Stadium on Wednesday 9 December 2026 to the SCG, where the last ends on Friday 8 January 2027. All four fit inside 31 days. Twelve clear days after the final day in Sydney comes the first morning in Nagpur.

The BCCI released its dates on Thursday 26 March 2026, as part of India’s men’s international home season for 2026-27. Nagpur, from Thursday 21 to Monday 25 January, is followed by Chennai from Friday 29 January to Tuesday 2 February, Guwahati from Thursday 11 to Monday 15 February, Ranchi from Friday 19 to Tuesday 23 February and Ahmedabad from Saturday 27 February to Wednesday 3 March.

The series spans 42 days. Most of the Tests are three clear days apart; the exception is an eight-day break between Chennai and Guwahati. Every match takes in a Saturday and a Sunday, and Ahmedabad is the only one to start on a weekend. As at 19 October 2026, the BCCI’s fixture list is unchanged.

Seven clear days after Ahmedabad, Australia meet England in the 150th Anniversary Test at the MCG, a day-night match from Thursday 11 to Monday 15 March, starting at 2pm AEDT. A cricket.com.au article on the summer counted “10 Tests in 14 weeks” for Australia’s men between early December and mid-March.

The holders lost their last series in India

Australia hold the trophy. They won it back 3-1 at home in 2024-25, sealing the series at the SCG on Sunday 5 January 2025, their first series win against India since 2014-15. That was the first five-Test men’s series between the countries since 1991-92. This one is the first in India under the five-Test format the two boards announced in March 2024.

The most recent series in India went the other way. India won 2-1 in 2023, taking the Tests in Nagpur and Delhi before Australia won by nine wickets in Indore and the final Test, in Ahmedabad, was drawn. The cricket.com.au schedule article put the history in a sentence: “It has been over two decades since Australia’s last Test series win on Indian shores in 2004-05”. The article that counted those 10 Tests called the tour “a final frontier” for several senior Australian players who have never won a series there.

India, for their part, lost five of their nine home Tests between the start of the 2024-25 season and 26 March 2026.

Familiar ground in Chennai, new ground in Guwahati

The five grounds are the VCA Stadium in Nagpur, the MA Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai, the ACA Stadium in Guwahati, the JSCA International Stadium in Ranchi and the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad. None of the Tests is in Kolkata, Mumbai or Bengaluru.

The Chennai ground is “the most familiar of the five venues”, as cricket.com.au described it in March, with seven Tests between the sides, one won by Australia and three lost. It is also where the 1986 Test was tied, the match in which, by the BCCI’s account, “the first foundation stone for the Border-Gavaskar Trophy was laid.” The trophy itself was introduced a decade later, in 1996.

Nagpur is where Australia lost the first Test of 2023 by an innings and 132 runs. Ahmedabad staged the draw that ended that series, and Australia’s win over India in the 2023 ODI World Cup final. Australia’s last Test in Ranchi, in 2017, was drawn.

Guwahati is new ground for Australian Test cricket. In March, when the schedule came out, it had hosted one Test, in November 2025, which India lost by 408 runs, and Australia had played two T20 internationals there and won both. February’s match will be Australia’s first Test at the ground.

What the Border-Gavaskar Trophy 2027 schedule leaves out

As at 19 October 2026, neither country has named a squad for the series. The BCCI’s release and its Ranchi match page carry no ticketing details for the India Tests. Neither that release nor the cricket.com.au schedule article names an Australian broadcaster, although Cricket Australia’s own fixture page for the series shows Foxtel and Kayo against all five Tests.

Australia have not won a Test series in India since 2004-05. This one begins at 9.30 on a Nagpur morning, which on a Sydney clock is 3pm.