India 51 trails for 4 people (Rahul 33*, Starc 2-25) australia 445 (Head 152, Smith 101, Carry 70, Bumrah 6-76) 394 runs.
India amassed 4,394 runs against Australia, scoring 51 runs, and their first target when Test matches resume will be to reach 246 runs to avoid a follow-on. Getting there dramatically improves your chances of reaching Melbourne while staying level in the series. Rain is also expected on the 4th and 5th, so it could be a race against time if Australia is hit again.
Australia’s last three wickets added 40 runs to their overnight score of 405 for 7. There was brief rain on either side of the 17.1 overs they took after Jasprit Bumrah removed Pat Cummins to take his sixth wicket. It is Australia’s 50th Test in an innings. Alex Carey, who had made 45 on the second evening to keep Australia’s advantage intact after Bumrah’s three-wicket burst, played a brilliant stroke to bring up his half-century. Akash Deep – before scoring 70. He was run out by Akash Deep, who finally got his wicket with the 53rd false shot he induced in the innings.
Australia’s fast bowlers then began to show how much more they could get on this Gabba surface than India’s fast bowling, thanks to their home and height advantage with all three – Starc, Hazlewood and Cummins – being over 6’5″, often standing taller than their counterparts. When hitting a pitch down the length or backwards, it found seam movement and sometimes even an awkward bounce, and Hazlewood hit KL Rahul’s wrist with the first ball of the match.
By then, India were already one down and Yashasvi Jaiswal dropped his second ball, which bounced upward off Starc and straight at Mitchell Marsh at the right angle. Starc struck again in the second over and steered a full-footed drive away from Shubman Gill away from his body with his head not over the ball. The ball flew quickly down the left side of the gully and Marsh was once again in a position to intercept it, this time with a nice dive to the left.
Both India’s wickets fell to avoidable shots as the ball went off the deck, a trend continued by Kohli, who had to react quickly to stop a Starc lifter leaping towards his head in the previous over. – Drunk loose from Hazlewood wide and caught behind, once again dropped early due to uncertainty outside the stumps.
Soon after Kohli was dismissed, the rain returned to force an early lunch and another 11 balls were abandoned after the restart. None of this helped facilitate Australia’s victory, but it also helped keep the fast bowlers fresh. This also meant that India’s batsmen had to look away several times.
All this and excellent bowling contributed to India’s next wicket. Cummins tipped one across Rishabh Pant over the wicket and landed on a perfect line and length to draw out an uncertain front fielding. Australia noted Pant’s tendency to aim for the ground, fielding the ball at an angle across him rather than following the angle and playing it later on the off side. This particular ball threatened to swing back at Pant before going off the pitch and finding his edge through Carey.
Through it all, Rahul has batted with near certainty, showing excellent judgment in the fourth stump channel and being ready to throw the ball to him in terms of intent and timing of his weight shift. Apart from one minor effort past the backward point region, he drove convincingly, picking up three fours through covers en route to taking 33 off 64 balls at stumps. With him was his skipper Rohit Sharma, who had yet to open his account.
Karthik Krishnaswamy is an assistant editor at ESPNcricinfo.