Australia win India Test series Tense draw

(MENAFN- Arab Times) MELBOURNE Dec 30 (AFP): Australia regained the Border-Gavaskar Trophy after India hung on for a tense draw in the third Test in Melbourne on Tuesday. India were never in the hunt on the final day after Australia took till lunch to declare at 318 for nine leaving them to chase 384 runs for victory off 70 overs. Their task became even more Herculean when they were reduced to 19 for three in the ninth over and from there it was a matter of survival. The match was called off with four overs remaining when India were 174 for six with skipper M.S. Dhoni on 24 and Ravi Ashwin on eight. It was the first drawn Melbourne Test in 17 years. The Australians have won the fourmatch series with one Test left to play in Sydney next week after winning in Adelaide and Brisbane.

'India have some very good batters in their side it was still a very good wicket and we really didn't want to give India a sniff' Australia skipper Steve Smith said of his declaration decision. 'We've got another series win which is what we were after and hopefully we can finish well in Sydney.' The draw means that India have not won at the Melbourne Cricket Ground for 33 years. India resisted for a time through Virat Kohli and Ajinkya Rahane who shared in a record 262-run stand in the first innings but once Kohli was dismissed to break an 85-run partnership pressure again mounted on the tourists who have a notorious reputation for lower-order batting collapses.

'We lost early wickets we put pressure on ourselves and we had to fight it out and overall it's a good performance by the team' Dhoni said. 'It was very tough to score over 300 on this kind of wicket in one day so overall I'm quite happy.' Kohli was out to a poor shot on the first ball after tea spooning a catch straight to Joe Burns at square leg off Ryan Harris for 54. Mitchell Johnson then bowled Cheteshwar Pujara (21) with a gem of a delivery straightening off the pitch to crash into off-stump. Johnson rattled Pujara with a shortpitched snorter into the grille of his helmet and then two balls later produced his wicket- taking delivery to leave the tourists at 141 for five with 18 overs left. Rahane mistimed a pull shot off Josh Hazlewood to Shaun Marsh for 48 off 117 balls to expose the India tail with 14 overs remaining. India had a disastrous start to their innings and lost Shikhar Dhawan (0) Lokesh Rahul (1) and Murali Vijay (11) to slump to 19 for three in the ninth over.

Harris struck with the second ball of his opening over trapping Dhawan leg before wicket for a duck. Johnson backed that up in the next over getting a thick edge off debutant Rahul promoted to number three and Shane Watson running back from slips took the skied catch over his shoulder. In-form opener Vijay went to a controversial leg before wicket call by umpire Kumar Dharmasena in the ninth over of the innings by Hazlewood. Vijay who has a ton and two half-centuries in this series was given out although replays showed the ball would have missed leg-stump. India refuse to use the Decision Referral System (DRS) and have been on the wrong end of several umpiring decisions.

Australia vs India Scoreboard

MELBOURNE Dec 30 (AFP): Scoreboard at close of play on the final day of the third Test between Australia

and India at Melbourne Cricket Ground on Tuesday.

AUSTRALIA 1st innings: 530 (S.Smith 192 R. Harris 74 C. Rogers 57B. Haddin 55 S. Watson 52; M. Shami 4-138)

INDIA 1st innings: 465 (V. Kohli 169A. Rahane 147 M. Vijay 68; R. Harris 4-70)

AUSTRALIA 2nd innings: (Overnight:261-7)

D. Warner lbw b Ashwin . . . . . . . . .40

C. Rogers b Ashwin . . . . . . . . . . . .69

S. Watson c Dhoni b I. Sharma . . . .17

S. Smith c Rahane b U. Yadav . . . .14

S. Marsh run out (Kohli) . . . . . . . . .99

J. Burns c Dhoni b I. Sharma . . . . . .9

B. Haddin c Dhoni b U. Yadav . . . . .13

M. Johnson c Rahane b Shami . . . .15

R. Harris c Dhoni b Shami . . . . . . .21

N. Lyon not out . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1

J. Hazlewood not out . . . . . . . . . . . .0

Extras (lb-13 nb-5 w-2) . . . . . . . . . .20

Total (for 9 wickets declared 98 overs) . . 318

Fall of wickets: 1-57 D. Warner2-98 S.Watson3-131 S. Smith4-164 C.Rogers5-176 J. Burns6-202 B.Haddin7-234 M. Johnson8-303 R.

Harris9-317 S. Marsh

Bowling: U. Yadav 22-3-89-2(w-1) M.Shami 28-4-92-2(w-1) I. Sharma 20-5-49-2(nb-5) R. Ashwin 28-4-75-2.

INDIA 2nd innings: (Target: 384 runs)

M. Vijay lbw b Hazlewood . . . . . . . . 11

S. Dhawan lbw b Harris . . . . . . . . . . 0

L. Rahul c Watson b Johnson . . . . . . 1

V. Kohli c Burns b Harris . . . . . . . . 54

A. Rahane c S. Marsh b Hazlewood 48

C. Pujara b Johnson . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

M. Dhoni not out . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

R. Ashwin not out . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

Extras (lb-6 nb-1) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

Total (for 6 wickets 66 overs) . . . . 174

Fall of wickets: 1-2 S. Dhawan2-5 L. Rahul3-19 M. Vijay4-104 V. Kohli5-141 C. Pujara6-142 A. Rahane Did not bat: M. Shami I. Sharma U.Yadav

Bowling: M. Johnson 15-3-38-2 R.Harris 16-8-30-2 J. Hazlewood 15-3-40-2 N. Lyon 12-0-36-0 S. Watson 6-1-14-0(nb-1) S. Smith 2-0-10-0.

Referees

Umpire: Kumar Dharmasena

Umpire: Richard Kettleborough

TV umpire: John Ward

Match referee: Roshan Mahanama

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