Australia knew that Day 3 comatose pitch would be about mind-games, not a mine-field. They deployed interesting fields to choke up the run flow, giving away 256 runs in the day, and left India ruing their profligacy on the previous day where they allowed Todd Murphy and Nathan Lyon to add 70 runs for the ninth wicket. Not just the runs but the time it took out of the equation might yet play a role in the result of the game. Ever since the first day, it was clear that the game will inexorably slide on this sluggish batting beauty with the hope that something dramatic happens on the final day. Time will tell, but going by Nathan Lyon’s post-day quotes and Daniel Vettori’s to Australian radio, they aren’t holding their breath for the pitch to break up on the final day to create any havoc.
By lunch it was clear that the pitch wasn’t in mood to reveal any hidden dark shades, and Australia started to improvise. They employed a 7-2 field, with seven men on the leg side. At one stage, Cheteshwar Pujara had two short midwickets, a square-leg, a short mid-on and a wide mid-on. He would step out to the off spinners Lyon and Murphy, but his wristy whips couldn’t penetrate the packed leg side. Occasionally, when they drifted the line of attack to a bit too much outside off, he would cream through the off, but those were rare occasions. They also had the seamers bowl on the leg stump line to him with a legslip in place.
Even for Shubman Gill, Mitchell Starc and Cameron Green had two short midwickets and a square-leg. There wasn’t much in the track “no foot marks at all” as Lyon would say later, and Australia had to innovate to ensure Indians didn’t run away with run-rate.
There was one interesting non-event that caught the eye. The tall left-armer Starc kept operating round the stumps, looking for reverse swing, for long periods, nullifying any chance of creating any rough with his landing for Lyon and Murphy to exploit. “You have to ask Starky about that,” Lyon would say later. “He is good with the reverse swing from round the stumps,” was his explanation for Starc’s reluctance to go over the stumps.
On air, Matthew Hayden would also opine that Starc should go over the stumps to help out his spinners with Ravi Shastri too expressing surprise before saying, “that tells me perhaps Australia don’t want to create that rough and are thinking about their batting”.
Gill kept creaming his drives and short-arm punches while Pujara, who had played India’s best knock of the series on a turner in the final innings at Indore, asserted himself. Australia then tried to shut the tap with their fields.
Eventually, Gill went down on his knee to lift a ball down the leg side over short fine-leg to bring up his hundred. It was a lovely celebration too, eyes shut in bliss as he waved his hand holding his helmet. A quick shake of hands and Pujara was away, letting him soak up the moment. Unfortunately, almost immediately, Pujara had one of his brain-fade moments on the front foot in Indian conditions. He stretched forward, but didn’t get his bat anywhere close to the line, dangling it idly away, and was trapped lbw by Murphy. When Virat Kohli walked in, he had a laugh with Gill over his hundred, a moment that would undoubtedly be captured in gifs and broadcasters as a passing of the baton.
Gill spoke about the time out of Test cricket from 2021. “To be honest with you, I haven’t performed that well in Test cricket up to my expectations. As soon as I was getting set, I was getting over defensive and over cautious (in the past). I was thinking now that I have got set, I will have to bat as long as possible. I was putting myself under too much pressure; that is not my game. So I had to tell myself that if I get dismissed while playing my natural game then it’s fine by me. Most of my dismissals were trying to defend. I felt that if I get out trying to play a shot after getting set, I can accept that dismissal; if I get out playing a game which isn’t my style then it becomes unacceptable to me. So I had to tell myself that I shouldn’t put too much pressure on myself when a situation like this arises next time that I must convert now that I am set. I needed to keep it a bit free-flowing. It was more about mental make up and I focussed on that primarily.” Gill would say later.
However, Gill, who played his longest Test innings to date, facing over 200 balls, had a Usman Khawaja moment of his own – he shuffled to his right and had a tired waft at a quickish off break from Lyon that kept a tad low to catch him plumb in front.
With still 22 overs left in the day, it was Ravindra Jadeja who walked out at that point, and not the attacking Shreyas Iyer. It suggested India wanted to shut out Australia from the game first, before entertaining any notions of a win. By stumps, they were 191 runs adrift of Australia. India’s hope would rest on them batting through the fourth day, get ahead by 150 runs or thereabouts and see if Australia crack under pressure on the final day, even if the pitch doesn’t. The other possibility of India being shot out early does exist but it does look a tad tough at this point to envisage with the strong lower order and on a Day 4 track.
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