India bounced back in style to win the third domain test match to take a 2-1 lead in the series and retain the Border-Gavaskar trophy once again after 2017. Australia showed tremendous fight in the fourth innings as Pat Cummins and Nathan Lyon showed some determination which forced the game to last day with rainy conditions expected to play its part but Indian bowlers took just 27 balls to clean up the tail.
The two teams again met in the fourth and final test at Sydney cricket ground where the touring team has again found themselves at the drivers seat at the end of first day’s play. India won the toss and elected to bat first with the opening pair from Karnataka- KL Rahul and Mayank Agarwal walking out to bat.
Agarwal(77) continued to impress after some impressive performance in his debut test but KL Rahul continued to disappoint as he could just manage 9 runs. Agarwal and Pujara took the Indian innings forward and stitched a 116 runs partnership for the second wicket and took India to a strong position before Agarwal perished playing a aerial shot and ended up getting caught at long on facing Nathan Lyon.
Skipper Virat Kohli arrived to the crease and played some delicate shot but he was soon dismissed in the post tea session after scoring 23 runs and vice captain Ajinkya Rahane was next to follow him who scored 18 runs.
Andhra captain Hanuma Vihari walked out to join Cheteshwar Pujara in the center and the West-South combination had allready stitched 75 runs for the fifth wicket as India finished the 1st day on 303-4.
A premature congratulations by Michael Vaughan
Former England captain Michael Vaughan was one of the analyst who predicted that Australia will win the test series against India but his prediction was proved wrong by the impressive performance of the Indian team.
After finding India in a strong position at the end of 1st day’s play, Vaughan congratulated Virat Kohli and company for winning the test series. He reckons that the hosts have no chance to script a comeback in the test match.
“Well done India .. Great away series Win .. A lesson to all young players .. The @cheteshwar1 way is the way to have success in Test Cricket .. No way the Aussies can come back from this 1st day,” Vaughan tweeted.
