India vs Australia: Cricket live scores, blog, 4th Test – Day 4

Hi Suneer, thought I would try and track you down and thank you for your excellent calls over 4 tests. I missed the last day with Oz on ropes due to tropical cyclone Debbie giving Airlie Beach a blowing. Packed the family in the car and headed to Townsville for running water, electricity and WiFi. It was a great series and the best team won. It could have gone each way. India looked to be in the corner early but they punched their way out and were well on top at the end of day 4. Kholi is great for the game , whether on the field or in the stands he drives the team and takes the contest to the opposition. Watching Virat stumble when he comes down under will make the next test series so compelling. Once again thanks for your live call comments in the best test series in a while.

Above I made spelling error due to auto "christians" i intended to write christian, Daniel christian.

As far as quality of teams well that time even the contemporary oppositions were of much better quality, i remember even zimbabwe with likes of cambell johnson flowers goodwin olanga streak whittals were highly competitive, do you remember how strong pakistan was with saeed anwar akram inzamam waqar saqlain, sri lanka had aravinda ranatunga mahanama jayasuriya, india had sachin ganguly dravid, so were other teams except may be england who are a much better one day unit now than at that time or perhaps new zealand also got better than before. So generally quality of most teams has diminshed significantly!

Citing 1 hell of a match proves the rule, that match actually gave VVS lifetime recognition. And yes waugh giving follow on orders to India in India itself shows they were dominating in that match and shows the gutsy character of the Legend! All captains that succeeded him ponting, clarke and now smith dont even dare to give follow on to oppositions not even in Australia.

Ha, well said brissie. Waugh also had this team for a lot of his captaincy Langer Hayden Ponting M.Waugh S.Waugh Martyn Gilchrist Warne Lee Gillespie McGrath Smith himself would probably be the only certainty to make that team

Waugh was captain when Australia lost in 2001 after going 1-0 up and seemingly having the series under wraps in Kolkata. Much like Smith this series in Bangalore.

It was a poor Series as far as India and Virat Kohli is concerned, as a weak Australian side visited this time, score-line should have been 3-0 or at-least 2-0 if not 4-0. Australians would be happy with a score-line of 1-2.

Imagine if Steve waugh, the greatest captain ever had gone1 up in the very first test match of an away series, Oh God the home team would have had no chance after that, the man with "nerves of steel" would run over opposition thereafter! Such was his composure on the field as I recall how cool he was in that 1999 semi final vs south africa even in those nail biting moments. To me he was the most aggressive captain even more than McCullum. From that era to now, what a shift , now you have exactly opposite leader, who on one hand is threatening to become Bradman2 with his outstanding batting qualities but on the other has no clue about leadership. His game tactics and field settings as a captain might be okay but he is different sort of character, fidgety, boyish, lack of compusure and it seems he cannot impose even on his own team mates forget about affecting the mindset of the opposition players. As a neutral I would like him to be relieved from captaincy and focus on amassing those massive numbers without worrying too much about other things. Same can be said about virat kohli, as I believe best batsman in the side should never be handed the burden of captaincy and ideally should be given to fast bowlers e.g from past wasim akram, kapil dev, imran khan, ian botham, richard hadlee...

Ussie has never batted in India and has scored a 50 against England

Not good news for Don Freo.

Well, Khawaja had a very poor series in India, and has never scored a home 50 vs England ;) S Marsh, on the other hand, so much talent, potential and dressing room banter.

I am less of a Twitter person but getting there. @Cric_Writer

"Would also like to add that I feel Umesh’s growth as a bowler has come drastically under the captaincy of Kohli. A sense of belief was inculcated into him I felt, something that was missing earlier." You have an important point there. I wrote a piece on the Yadavs this weekend where I address this issue and quote Umesh talking about it. Now that you have time, have a read http://www.cricketcountry.com/articles/the-day-of-the-yadav-589097

Very well put Suneer. Could not have said it better. We forget these guys are in their 20's, young leaders, and learning every day.

That is just silly. Having a player like Kohli in your team is always going to be a good thing for you.

India is a very good team at home --interesting to see how they go when they travel. In the end there was not a lot between the teams ---a match-winning Indian partnership in the third test and a couple of dropped catches by Renshaw over the last couple of days, were both important. Anyway well done to India --worthy winners. As they say, you need to take away some positives --Smith world class even on tough wickets, Renshaw showed enough to suggest he will be a stayer, Maxwell maybe finally have arrived and showed good fighting spirit last night along with Wade. Add Hanscomb and Warner assuming he recovers from a poor tour and there's the basis of a good batting lineup for the Ashes. I think Marsh may have done his dash---seems he's a 50 or very low score guy ---and more often the latter. A few spinners to chose from including Swepson and a decent pace line-up---Cummins along with Stark and Hazlewood will be great for the Ashes tour---especially if you add one or two of Pattinson, Bird and Sayers. I am not sure what Chad Sayers needs to do to play regularly for Australia--he is a genuine wicket-taker! Good series and I enjoyed the Roar coverage.

A very good gift by Indian team to the Nation in "Gudiparwa" (Maharashtrian New Year Day)!