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India were bolstered by another Virat Kohli century after KL Rahul hammered a maiden ton of his own on a pitch that continued to offer nothing to the bowlers but Australia did well to at least stifle the visitors’ scoring on the third day.
You can follow the live scores of the fourth day of the fourth Test from the SCG starting at 10:30am (AEDT).
Australia bowled on and around the off-stump and rarely lost their length through the first session on day three. The pent-up frustration from rarely scoring runs led to Rohit Sharma pre-meditate a sweep that saw his end to Nathan Lyon.
LIVE SCORES OF DAY FIVE BETWEEN AUSTRALIA AND INDA
At that stage, Lyon was getting some rip from outside the off-stump but once Kohli joined Rahul and forged a partnership, things steadily began to turn for Lyon. Kohli wasn’t his ebullient self when he began batting but it was just his way of respecting the conditions which were evidently not in favour of run-scoring.
The bowlers would still struggle to get the batsmen out on a track that offered no movement or pace but that very lack of speed meant that the batsmen struggled to get their timing going.
Kohli got going and upped the ante towards the latter half of the day and he was helped in no small way by a batsman whose initiation to Test cricket had been rough to say the least.
Many others have had the misfortune of being dropped forever after even playing once, the sort of shot he did in both innings of his debut. Ravi Shastri and the others in the think-tank resisted that temptation and the result was a well-made century as India’s new opener.
Of course he had some luck on his way to getting there. And then he made some of his own too.
Steven Smith dropped him after Shane Watson had frustrated Rahul enough to force him to play out of his comfort zone. The Aussie skipper immediately blamed the overhead Spidercam wire for his discomfiture and that has led the broadcaster and the board to issue a joint statement regarding the same.
There had earlier been a missed run-out chance that led to Smith gesticulate in frustration at his deputy and the fielder at short fine-leg and even before that, the umpire had missed an inside edge on to the short-leg fielder – which, in all fairness to the umpire, hadn’t even been spotted by the fielder himself, or by the ‘keeper.
Australia came back into the game in the final session when Rahul finally perished to the pull yet again, and Ajinkya Rahane and comeback-man Suresh Raina fell within the space of two deliveries to Watson.
Kohli is still at the crease and giving him company in their 50-run stand is Wriddhiman Saha.
Saha had played as a stand-in for MS Dhoni in the first Test and then gone on to play a stroke very unbecoming of the situation on the final day of the game. The 50 balls he played on day three showed his usual side, a workman-like, doughty Test batsman who can bat for longer periods if necessary and if India need to bail themselves out of a potentially sticky situation, he will need to carry on doing the same.
The Indian lower-order has been bolstered by the presence of R Ashwin and Bhuveshwar Kumar, but they will have to eschew the free-flowing stroke-play they are used to in order to survive on this track.
Kohli will know as a captain what he needs to do, and just as he showed on the third day, a cautious approach might just be the prudent way to go.
India’s mandate can be simply put. Bat on and on and on.
At the very least, they need to survive till the lunch break, but if they are looking to reduce their stint at the crease in the final innings, it will make sense for them to go on longer than that.
Australia will hope for some reverse, and for Lyon to take more control of the spin department but can be expected to dry up the runs the way they did in the first session on day three. Can they frustrate the Indian lower-order enough though on this benign pitch?
You can follow the live score of the fourth day of this fourth Australia v India Test from 10:30 am local time on Friday and post your comments in the section below.
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