The Liebke Ratings: Australia vs India, Third Test

With the series locked at one match apiece, Australia and India headed to Melbourne for the traditional Boxing Day Test. Sadly, yet again, there was no actual boxing during the game. Disappointing news for fans of renowned pugilists ‘Marvelous’ Marcus Harris and Cheteshwar ‘The Hitman’ Pujara.

Here are the ratings for the Third Test between Australia and India.

Team Changes
Grade: B-

Both teams made changes going into the Test. Australia recalled Mitchell Marsh to replace Pete Handscomb. A great decision, considering how much Marsh had been knocking down the door with his Shield form. An opportunity well earned.

Disappointingly, however, certain ‘fans’ at the MCG were heard to be booing Marsh when he came on to bowl on the first day. Pretty pathetic, really. Save that kind of nonsense for when he refuses to kiss his brother while on KissCam.

India, meanwhile, ditched both openers KL Rahul and Murali Vijay. One can only assume that Murali hadn’t been loud enough in his denials in the previous Test when Tim Paine had suggested that he couldn’t possibly like Virat Kohli as a bloke.

Still, India deciding to play a Test without their openers challenged the entire basis of if and how things begin. Kohli really turning the philosophical screws.

The Pitch
Grade: C+

India won the toss and elected to bat on a pitch that soon became the central topic of conversation for its docility.

Australia struggled to make headway as India cruised comfortably through the first few days. Pujara made his second century of the series, while Kohli would have also done so if he hadn’t injured his back in a collision with Alastair Cook, who was still batting here from last year.

The evidence is clear. This ‘footy’ thing that takes place at the MCG during the winter needs to be abandoned. Give the curator a chance to properly develop a cricket pitch. Let the winter folk go back to the MFG where they belong.

Sandpaper
Grade: D-

To take attention away from the relentless India run-scoring, two of the sandpaper three, Cameron Bancroft and Steve Smith, gave interviews to Fox Cricket.

We shouldn’t have been surprised. After all, as Obi-Wan Kenobi told us in Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, ‘the Sandpaper People are easily startled, but they will soon be back, and in greater numbers.’

Bancroft’s interview, in particular, contained a number of stunning revelations, including the following:

“Dave [Warner] suggested to me to carry out the ‘Play’ action on The Emoji Movie on Netflix given the situation we were in in the hotel room and I didn’t know any better.”

“Dave [Warner] suggested to me to carry out the ‘leaving before it was my shout’ action given the situation we were in in the pub and I didn’t know any better.”

and

“Dave [Warner] suggested to me to carry out the ‘putting the onions underneath the sausage’ action given the situation we were in in the Bunnings sausage sizzle and I didn’t know any better.”

Following Bancroft’s, and to a lesser extent, Smith’s, revelations, many in the media demanded that Warner come out and offer his side of the story, lest his prospects of returning to the team became untenable.

Because, sure, if there’s one thing we’ve learned from this entire fiasco it’s that when people in power want you to do something you’re not particularly comfortable in doing, you should always succumb to that pressure.

(Photo by Ashley Vlotman/Gallo Images/Getty Images)

Pat Cummins’ Bowling
Grade: A-

Kohli declared late on the second day with India 7/443. Somewhat of a surprise, given that if he’d batted into the third day, India’s chances of winning would have been no slimmer and Australia may well have needed an entire new bowling attack for the Fourth Test.

Regardless, Australia’s best batsmen were too exhausted from all the bowling they’d been required to do (Mitch Marsh too). As a result, Australia were knocked over for 151, successfully putting to an end all the complaining about the flat pitch. Elite curator redemptionship.

Fed up with his teammates, Pat Cummins took the ball – not the new ball, of course, because of, uh, reasons – and rapidly took 4/0 in eight balls. At one stage, he had the figures of 4/4 off 4.4 overs. The fours was with him.

From now on, every young Australian bowler should win a Test as a teenager then not play for five years before returning to become the country’s greatest hero. This is basically the origin story in Batman Begins but better because it has more cricket.

At the end of the third day, the game was intriguingly poised. With India 5/54, Australia was in with a slim chance of stealing a victory provided they could take the last five wickets for, say, -250 runs.

(photo by Morgan Hancock/Action Plus via Getty Images)

Pat Cummins’ Batting
Grade: B+

With weather looming, silly old Cummins kept taking wickets, giving India more time to bowl Australia out and win the Test. He finished with 6/27 when Kohli declared at 8/106 after Josh Hazlewood dismissed Rishabh Pant.

Great sportsmanship from Kohli to delay his declaration until Cummins could no longer best Sarfraz Nawaz’s ground record of 9/86.

Australia needed 399 to win. Needless to say, that was too many for the top order to handle and Australia were soon 6/157, with the game on the brink of a fourth day finish.

But Cummins had different ideas. He built a number of sensible partnerships, soon top-scoring for the side, as God intended. He then brought up a fifty, before extending it to his highest score in Test cricket as he saw Australia through the final session plus an extra half hour to stumps.

How Alastair Cook was knighted before Pat Cummins is beyond me.

Alas, however, it is simply untenable for one man to try to defeat the best team in the world by himself. And so the fifth day saw India finally defeat Pat Cummins by 137 runs to lead the series 2-1 and retain the Cummins-Gavaskar Trophy.