Jaffer steadies Vidarbha after Gurbani rocks Delhi
Steve Smith scored his 23rd Test century to bat out a draw for Australia in the fourth Ashes Test and deny England their first win of the series in Melbourne on Saturday.
The Australia skipper stonewalled the English bowling attack to remain unconquered on 102 for his third century of the series when the Test was called a draw late on the final day.
Smith joined the legendary Don Bradman as the only batsmen to score centuries in four consecutive Melbourne Tests. He also joined Ricky Ponting as the only batsmen in Test history to have made six centuries in a calendar year on multiple occasions.
Australia only lost two wickets on the fifth day but coasted through after lunch to finish on 263 for four with Mitchell Marsh not out on 29.
The hosts have already clinched the Ashes with an unassailable 3-0 lead in the series ahead of the fifth and final Test in Sydney next week. It was just the second drawn Boxing Day Test in 20 years, although there was criticism of the lifeless state of the Melbourne Cricket Ground drop-in pitch.
Smith and Marsh comfortably batted through after lunch to ensure England were unable to go for the win after leading by 164 runs on the first innings, following a record-breaking unbeaten 244 from opener Alastair Cook.
The Australia captain led the salvage operation in a 275 -ball vigil to take his series tally to 604 runs at an average of 151.00 after losing batting partners David Warner and Shaun Marsh before lunch on the final day. After two painstaking hours of minimal scoring, the tourists grabbed the wickets of Warner and Marsh to briefly raise hopes of grabbing their first win in an already-decided series.
Warner had looked set for his 22nd Test hundred and second century of the match before he attempted to slog the second ball of Joe Root's first over.
The ball, pitched into the foot marks, skewed into the air and James Vince took a comfortable catch in the covers to give Root the perfect present on his 27th birthday.
Warner dropped his head realising he had botched a golden chance to claim Test twin centuries for a fourth time in his career. The normally adventurous opener played with great circumspection to keep England at bay, batting for 301 minutes and 227 balls in his slowest Test innings.
His dismissal also ended a 107-run stand with Smith, which helped Australia wipe out the innings deficit.
There was some rare excitement in the final over before lunch when Marsh edged Stuart Broad to wicketkeeper Jonny Bairstow, who took a splendid catch.
Cook was named man-ofthe-match after carrying his bat in England's first innings.
It was the highest score by a batsman carrying his bat in Test history, bettering New Zealander Glenn Turner's 223 not out against the West Indies in Kingston in 1972. The last Englishman to carry his bat through a Test innings was Mike Atherton with 94 against New Zealand in 1997. Cook also surpassed the highest score by a visiting batsman in a Test match at the famous MCG, bettering the 208 by West Indian great Viv Richards in 1984. There was a total attendance of 262,616 fans over the five days.
AUST 1ST INNGS 327 ENG 1ST INNGS 491
AUST 2ND INNGS (overnight 2-103) Bancroft b Woakes ......................... 27 Warner c Vince b Root .................... 86 Khawaja c Bairstow b Anderson .... 11 Smith not out ................................ 102 Marsh c Bairstow b Broad ................ 4 M. Marsh not out .......... ................. 29 Extras: (b4) ..................................... 4 Total: (4 wkts; 124.2 overs) ........ 263 Bowling: Anderson 30-12-46-1, Broad 24-11-44-1, Woakes 26-7-621, Curran 20-6-53-0, Ali 13.2-2-32-0, Malan 8-1-21-0, Root 3-2-1-1. Wasim Jaffer brought into play his years of experience as he guided Vidarbha to 206 for four with an unbeaten half-century after seamer Rajneesh Gurbani scythed through Delhi's lower-order for a rare hat-trick in a Ranji Trophy final here.
At stumps on the second day, Jaffer was batting on 61 off 120 balls and Akshay Wakhare was yet to open his account, as Vidabha trailed by 89 runs. The match hanging in a balance, how Delhi bowlers perform during the first hour of the third day, could well prove to be decisive in the final context of the match.
Resuming on 271 for six, inform seamer Gurbani (6/59) rocked seven-time winners Delhi by removing three batsmen in as many balls in the second morning. The victims at the Holkar Stadium also included centurion Dhruv Shorey, making Gurbani only the second man to claim a hattrick in the final of India's premier domestic competition. Tamil Nadu’s B Kalyanasundaram was the first, achieving the feat against Mumbai in 1972/73. On 123 overnight, Shorey laced his innings with 21 boundaries before his team was all out for 295. Delhi lost their last four wickets for only five runs.
A day after a rather subdued outing, Gurbani found his mojo back as the 24-year-old ripped through the shaky defence of Vikas Mishra, Navdeep Saini and Shorey off successive deliveries before knocking over Kulwant Khejroliya, to cut short Delhi's innings. What made the feat even more commendable was that Gurbani, bowling the hat-trick ball, was up against a batsman who was nearing 150. Having found the fence on 21 occasions, including four times in the first session of day 2, Shorey was stunned when Gurbani got one to jag back from a shorter length and knock over the off-stump.
Gurbani delivered three more scorchers on either side of Shorey's dismissal, all resulting in the stumps getting knocked over. Trouble awaited them as Gurbani got one to prodigiously cut back and remove an unmoved Mishra's off-stump with the fifth ball of the 101st over. Saini, who got stuck to the crease, quickly went back to the dressing room as his stump was also sent flying by another sharp in-cutter.
Vidarbha began their innings in earnest and went to lunch without suffering any damage while scoring 45 runs. This season's most prolific opening duo of skipper Faiz Fazal (67) and Sanjay Ramaswamy (31) started the second session from where they had left, adding another 51 runs, before Akash Sudan sent Ramaswamy’s two stumps flying for the team's first breakthrough. That brought Jaffer in the middle but, playing in only his second first-class game, Sudan dealt Vidarbha a body blow when the medium pacer had Fazal caught behind after the batsman prodded casually to a delivery that was moving away.
He faced 101 balls scoring 10 boundaries. Prior to that, an unfazed Fazal continued playing his shots and brought up his fifty with a paddle-sweep boundary off left-arm spinner Mishra. Fazal, the first-time finalists' leading scorer in the season, drove with panache and employed the shots square off the wicket effectively.
Two wickets in the bag, Rishabh Pant brought back his best bet, Saini, into the attack and it paid dividends. Veteran Ganesh Satish (12), coming off a crucial secondinnings half-century in the semi-final against Karnataka, did not last long and was trapped in front of wicket by Saini, a reward for consistently running it hard and pitching it harder. Jaffer looked solid in the middle and hard as they tried, Delhi could dislodge the seasoned campaigner as an eventful day's play came to an end.
Before that, he entertained the sparse weekend crowd with a few delightful shots - a superb drive past the mid-on, a punch through point and cover drive that had lazy elegance written all over it. Eight-time Ranji Trophy winner with Mumbai, Jaffer used his wrists to flick Mishra and then glanced him to the third man fence for another boundary. Delhi kept pressing and were rewarded when tireless leftarm seamer Kulwant Kejroliya induced an edge from Apoorv Wankhade for Pant to complete a comfortable catch at the fag end.
The bowler, who returned figures of six for 59, said he was made aware of the possibility of taking a rare hattrick by "someone" from the crowd