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Nathan Lyon’s four-wicket haul stalled the hosts’ progress after tea and brought parity to a see-sawing Test between Australia and India in Dharamsala. Follow all the Day 3 action from 3pm (AEDT) right here on The Roar.
India were not exactly racing along when they got to tea at 2-153, but Lyon’s four-for in the third session paved the way for Australia to come back into the Test after they had been bowled out for 300 on Day 1.
Lyon grabbed the wickets of the stone-walling Cheteshwar Pujara, who had looked to take the game away from the Aussies, and then had Karun Nair, Ajinkya Rahane and Ravichandran Ashwin struggling to read his turn and bounce on a surface that had afforded nothing of that sort to the spinners until a few overs before the tea break.
India slid to 6-248 thanks to Lyon and with the top six batsmen all having returned to the pavillion, life might not exactly be the easiest for the lower order going into Day 3.
Wriddhiman Saha is coming off a century in Ranchi, where Ravindra Jadeja hammered a quickfire fifty, but that was a flatter, slower pitch.
On this surface, and against an attack that was provided India’s top-scorer, KL Rahul, with “the toughest session I have faced in Test cricket so far,” it might be asking too much to expect the tail to get going.
Already Saha has looked uncomfortable against Lyon while Jadeja has looked an lbw candidate against the speedsters. With the ball only a few overs old and expected to swing through the morning session, Saha, Jadeja, Bhuvneshwar Kumar and the final two batsmen will hope they can get a few runs.
Where India once looked like snatching a 100-run lead, it’s now a question of whether they can actually go in front of the tourists.
Australia will look to run through the lower order and grab a handy lead for themselves but one of the best possible results from a neutral’s perspective would be if the two sides ended close to each other in the first innings, effectively making it a one innings encounter.
Follow the live scores and blog of the third day of this fourth Test between India and Australia from 3pm (AEDT) here on The Roar.