Australia draw third test with India, win series

Wednesday, 31 December 2014 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

Reuters: India captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni and Ravichandran Ashwin frustrated Australia’s push for victory on day five of the third test in Melbourne on Tuesday, but the draw was enough for the hosts to complete an emphatic 2-0 series win with a game in hand. With Australia needing seven wickets from the final session at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, their bowlers could only manage three as Dhoni and Ashwin survived a nervous final hour to push India to safety. India were 174-6 when Australia captain Steven Smith conceded the draw with four overs remaining, with Dhoni unbeaten on 24 and Ashwin on eight. The tourists were 210 short of their victory target. Australia declared on 318-9 at lunch, setting India 384 to win in 70 overs. For a time after lunch, that appeared more than adequate for the hosts, whose pacemen scythed through India’s top order with three wickets in the first nine overs of their innings. Opening batsman Shikhar Dhawan was out lbw for a duck off Ryan Harris in the second over and Lokesh Rahul, surprisingly sent in at number three, was caught in the next over for one by Shane Watson who bolted back from the slips when the nervous debutant sent a top edge high from a poor pull shot. Opener Murali Vijay was dismissed lbw for 11, somewhat harshly by umpire Kumar Dharmasena, off the bowling of Josh Hazlewood before Virat Kohli and Ajinkya Rahane steadied to take the tourists to 104-3 at tea, 280 runs short of their victory target. Harris removed India’s tenacious Kohli for 54 on the first ball after tea to open the door, but a stubborn Rahane and Cheteshwar Pujara dug in for a valuable hour before Mitchell Johnson struck with 19 overs remaining to break the partnership. He rattled Pujara with a ball that struck him clean on the grill of his helmet, then bowled him two balls later with a slower delivery that jagged back viciously off the seam to have him out for 21. Perhaps unnerved by the loss of India’s last specialist batsman, Rahane became jumpy, and nearly played on to his stumps off Watson the next ball. He was out a few overs later, throwing away his wicket for 48 with a horrible pull off Hazlewood that floated straight to Shaun Marsh at midwicket. Joining Dhoni at the wicket, number eight batsman Ashwin was nearly caught behind on one by Shane Watson who dived across from first slip but put down a sharp one-handed chance. Both batsmen survived a number of false shots but showed grit to play out the remaining overs. Australia may ponder the wisdom of their relatively late declaration, having already constructed a lead of 326 runs by stumps on day four, but were in no mood to hurry proceedings with only a draw needed to make the Sydney test starting on Jan. 6 a dead rubber.

India tactics contributed to draw, says Smith

MELBOURNE (Reuters): Australia captain Steven Smith defended his decision to declare late and concede a draw four overs early in the third test on Tuesday, saying India had contributed to the non-result with their tactics in the morning.

Jeers rang out from the crowd of 14,000 at the Melbourne Cricket Ground as Smith and India captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni shook hands out on the pitch, with Australia forgoing 24 balls to capture the final four wickets for victory. Already leading the four-match series 2-0, Australia needed only a draw to seal it, and Dhoni (24 not out) and Ravichandran Ashwin (eight not out) had grimly protected the seventh wicket for over an hour on a flat pitch offering little for bowlers. However, Australia have mopped up India’s tail quickly throughout the series and the early finish flew in the face of the hosts’ mantra to always push for victory. “There wasn’t any up-and-down movement, there wasn’t any spin and we got a little bit of reverse swing, which was handy for us,” Smith told reporters of the MCG wicket. “But we really didn’t want to give India a sniff. “We’ve got another series win, which is what we were after, and hopefully we can finish well in Sydney.” Smith declared at lunch, setting India 384 for victory at the MCG where the highest successful fourth-innings chase was England’s 332 in 1928-29. That gave Australia’s bowlers 70 overs to attack after rain in the morning. India fell only 48 runs short of chasing down 364 in the first test at Adelaide Oval, a pitch that gave Australia’s match-winning spinner Nathan Lyon plenty to work with. Smith said the Adelaide finish played into his declaration but also claimed India’s tactics in the field during the morning had been a factor. “We do say we always play to win, but it was one of those circumstances where India had an opportunity to take the new ball,” Smith said of the morning, when Dhoni set defensive fields to stifle the scoring of middle-order batsman Shaun Marsh (99) and Ryan Harris (21). “They didn’t do that, so we thought ‘You know what? We’ll just give you a few less overs to get these runs’. “I thought they might have come out a bit harder at the start and we might have got a few wickets there. “It didn’t turn out that way, but we still got a series win, which is the most important thing for us.”