India hold on against Australian bowlers

AUSTRALIA were denied a dramatic victory and forced to settle for a 2-0 series win when India survived a nervous final session to force a draw in the fourth test at the Sydney Cricket Ground yesterday.

Steve Smith’s side were aggressive to the very last ball but unable to break the eighth-wicket pairing of Ajinkya Rahane and Bhuvneshwar Kumar and grab a third win to go with those in Adelaide and Brisbane.

The tourists, handed a victory target of 349 when Australia declared on their overnight 251/6, collapsed from 160/2 at tea to 217/7 but Virat Kohli had promised his team would never throw in the towel and they were true to his word. They had reached 252/7 when Australia ran out of overs in the early evening gloom.

I thought we had a good chance to win this game but it wasn’t to be

“It would have been nice to have got the win today,” said Smith, named man of the match and the series for his batting.

“I thought we had a good chance to win this game, but today wasn’t to be. The boys toiled really hard today and it was disappointing not to get the result in the end.”

Around the tea break Kohli and opener Murali Vijay flirted with going for the victory, which would have smashed the previous record for a successful fourth-innings run chase in a test at the ground.

Once their third-wicket partnership was broken with the departure of Vijay for 80, however, it was damage limitation as Kohli (46), the luckless Suresh Raina (0), Wriddhiman Saha (0) and Ravichandran Ashwin (1) all quickly followed.

That the last three were all out leg before wicket was an indication that the pitch was finally producing some turn and movement after being something of a batsman’s paradise for much of the match.

It was also fitting reward for Australia’s bowlers, particularly paceman Josh Hazlewood and spinner Nathan Lyon, who had bowled with discipline and accuracy in the first two sessions without claiming more than two wickets.