Australia vs India – 3rd Test, Day 3: Day Report

Indians couldn’t capitalize from the brilliant contributions from Virat Kohli and Ajinkya Rahane who shared an amazing stand of 262 for the fourth wicket after scoring a century each.

India’s collapse began with the wicket of Rahane and debutan KL Rahul, Captain MS Dhoni and Ravi Ashwin followed to pavilion. In the last over, Kohli departed leaving India 8 down with 68 runs behind Australia’s first innings score.

Final session on Day 3 began with Aggressive intent from the set batsmen Rahane and Kohli. Rahane moved on at a pace of limited over cricket whereas Kohli, tried to target Johnson, with whom he had a spat earlier in the day.

The mammoth stand of 262 runs which came of just 57.5 overs came to a very end when Rahane batting on 147 tried to sweep Nathan Lyon and failed in it only to find the ball striking his pads in front of stumps.

Soon debutant KL Rahul followed Rahane trying to loft Lyon, in the previous ball he was dropped doing the same. he managed to score just 3 runs inn his first taste of Test cricket. Meanwhile, captain MS Dhoni’s struggle in Tests continued as he felt uncomfortable in his short stay which resulted just 11 runs. Harris struck for second time in two overs as Ravi Ashwin departed for a duck by giving a return catch.

However, Kohli didn’t leave away the fight as he raised to his first 150 in Test Cricket. He went for shots with Shami standing at other end. Finally his gem of a knock came to an end when he was caught behind of Johnson for 169 as India ended Day at 462 for loss of 8 wickets.

Earlier, India lost Pujara on the second ball of the morning. Vijay continued his form with Kohli at other end only till he nicked a delivery of Watson into slips. Since then, it was just Kohli-Rahane stand as they batted out for about 4 hours.

 

Scorecard:

Australia (Ist Innings): 530 (Steve Smith 192, Ryan Harris 74, Mohammad Shami 4/134)

Indian Batting (Ist Innings):

 

Batsmen	Dismissal	Runs	Balls	4s	6s
Murali Vijay	c Marsh b Watson	68	135	7	0
Shikhar Dhawan	c Smith b Harris	28	51	3	0
Cheteshwar Pujara	c Haddin b Harris	25	71	2	0
Virat Kohli	c Haddin b Johnson	169	272	18	0
Ajinkya Rahane	lbw b Lyon	147	171	21	0
KL Rahul	c Hazlewood b Lyon	3	8	0	0
MS Dhoni	c Haddin b Harris	11	23	1	0
R Ashwin	c & b Harris	0	4	0	0
Mohammed Shami	not out	9	23	1	0
Extras:	(lb 1, w 1)	2
Total:	126.2 overs	462-8