India came within sniffing distance of a famous victory before a stoic resistance by Australia’s lower order delayed, perhaps, the inevitable in the third Test in Melbourne on Saturday.

Pat Cummins scored a heroic half-century as Australia finished at 258/8 at stumps on day four after being reduced to 176/7 after tea.

At end of play, he had scored an unbeaten 61 runs, facing 103 balls and hitting five fours as well as a six, while Nathan Lyon was batting on 6, as they put on 43 runs for the ninth wicket.

Australia need another 141 runs for an improbable win or hope for rain as is forecast to help them escape with a draw, while India are two wickets away from a 2-1 series lead.

India tried everything possible to get the final two wickets, with skipper Virat Kohli even convincing the umpires to go for the extra half-hour/eight overs seeing the possibility of a result.

Cummins, though, stood defiant as he brought up his second Test half-century off 86 balls, capping a fine day of Test cricket after taking career-best figures of 6-27 in the morning session.

In the morning, India had batted 52 minutes and extended their second innings from an overnight 54/5 even as threat of rain loomed large.

Play started on time, though, and India were batting with a plan to reach the 400-lead mark as quickly as possible. Kohli declared with a target of 399 for Australia.

  • Jasprit Bumrah followed up his six-for in the first innings with two more wickets, registering the first eight-wicket haul in a match in his nascent Test career.
  • With his eight-wicket match haul, Bumrah is now level with Kapil Dev and Ajit Agarkar for the most wickets in a Test in Australia by an Indian pacer. If he takes the remaining two Aussie wickets, he will be the first to register a 10-wicket match haul.

Best match figures in Australia for Indian pacers so far (apart from Bumrah)

Kapil Dev: 8/109 (Adelaide, 1985)

Ajit Agarkar: 8/160 (Adelaide, 2003) 

Kapil Dev: 8 /163 (Adelaide- 1992)  

  • India’s declaration also meant that they have done so in both innings of an away Test for only the third time.

  • Pat Cummins has now faced 391 balls in this series. Only Shaun Marsh, Usman Khawaja and Tim Paine from the current squad have faced more balls in the middle in Tests for Australia in the Ashes 2017-’18 and this series combined.

  • There were a couple of other statistical milestones achieved on day four as well.

With PTI inputs