[AtheK]

Originally Posted by vibbs

I think Australia are in a bit of bother. They want to win this match to claim the Border - Gavaskar Trophy, but they cant do so without risking a loss themselves.

The last session would be interesting. India's batting effort in the last test and the first innings here despite being 6 down will weigh down heavily on them. I would back the team to survive 3 sessions and chase down 320 runs if they have more than 3 sessions.

The only apprehension is the kind of balls that got Smith out. Australian bowlers have got the pace and strength to make the ball misbehave. All in all a good test match and this Indian team has really proved a lot of us wrong with their never say die attitude. They keep taking body blows only to come back stronger. There was a comparison on TV where they showed what would Australian team look like if they lost similar players as us. It looked much worse than the last series when they had only Smith and Warner out of the team.

Take a bow boys. You did us proud.

Imagine Autralia playing without the top 4 bowlers, they have played in all 4 matches, Rohit sharma would have single handedly outscored australian team in couple of innings. Yes they deserve a bow, and a team we will all be proud of.

Even if austrlia ends up winning this match, no one is going to give them any sort of credit.

[NPV]

After a short rain interruption and Australia's lead nearing 300, I think this is going the Sydney way. India will need some resolute batting to save this test. The pitch also seems to do the odd thing and may help the Australian bowlers. Clearly, India winning the match and creating history seems a distant possibility now. But they can still win the series with a drawn game

Edit: Australia 9 down and no sign of a declaration, so looks like there is an element of doubt in their minds and they want to extend the lead as much as possible. They may also be pretty confident of getting India all out in a day or little more than a day.

[Eddy]

No way will we survive a full day on this pitch. That crack is making the ball do funny things. Only rain can save us now, and even then it will have to be a significant delay.

[KPR]

What a game Thakur is having out in the middle! Top scorer for India in 1st innings. 7 wickets in the match. I'm not missing Pandya even Jadeja in the team right now.

[NPV]

Rain rain come again and help India save the game

Hope that we can draw this game even if it means we also need some help from the heavens and rain gods!

Amongst the losing 4th innings totals at Brisbane, India has couple of them in the 300's hope we can draw some inspiration from that.

Edit:rain ensures early close of play on Day 4.

[hemanth.anand]

We had 75 overs today. Looking at the weather, tomorrow also will be similar. So we have to bat out 75 overs at the minimum. Winning needs 4rpo which seems improbable (even with 90 overs it's 3.6rpo). Hope no one gifts their wicket as Rohit did. Wonderful last day to the series in store!

[vibbs]

https://www.accuweather.com/en/au/br...st/24741?day=2

Forecast for tomorrow looks sunny with chances of rain. Bu almost 2 hrs of rain predicted for night. Will this mean a late start tomorrow? Let us wait and see.

[ValarMorghulis]

One would think that the Aussie captain would back his world class pacers to wrap up this test in less than a day, considering there are 11 first choice Indian players unavailable.

Disappointed with Paine's decision to not declare around 250 and force a result.
For all his bark of "We will see you at Gabba", his actions sorely lacked bite.

[extreme_torque]

Originally Posted by AtheK

Imagine Autralia playing without the top 4 bowlers, they have played in all 4 matches, Rohit sharma would have single handedly outscored australian team in couple of innings. Yes they deserve a bow, and a team we will all be proud of.

Even if austrlia ends up winning this match, no one is going to give them any sort of credit.

Like we did not give any credit to India the last time they won in Australia? I do not understand this line of reasoning. Shardul has stepped up and as a bowler alone is performing better than the one's who are sitting out, even if we forget his invaluable contribution with the bat and same goes for Sundar. The team is playing better with this combination than the last one. If anyone wins, it will be on merit.

[AtheK]

Originally Posted by extreme_torque

Like we did not give any credit to India the last time they won in Australia? I do not understand this line of reasoning. Shardul has stepped up and as a bowler alone is performing better than the one's who are sitting out, even if we forget his invaluable contribution with the bat and same goes for Sundar. The team is playing better with this combination than the last one. If anyone wins, it will be on merit.

My statement comes from the fact that the way Australia had predicted that they will white wash this team, how we will roll over and lose in Gabba, our team has been trading blows with Aussies. Even if they win tomorrow it will be only on last day of the series and probably the last session too.

Clearly they could not walk the talk, and hence I said not many will give credit to Australia even if they somehow win the series, but high praises for Indian team will be from all the circles.

[jkrishnakj]

Did anyone notice Sanjay Manjrekar saying how cute it was to watch Steve Smith take a review?

Smith was grimacing in pain when his thumb came in between the handle and the ball. The ball is caught. Smith isn’t showing out the pain outside and he goes for review indicating that he mostly removed his hands off from the bat handle and a likely chance that the ball touched the globes with the hands taken off the handle.

There was just one person who found it cute - and that’s our great commentator SM. He went to a long extent yesterday defending how Steve Smith had no intentions of taking off the batting marks of Pant. Today, he finds his review ‘cute’. Gosh !

[harry10]

Originally Posted by AtheK

My statement comes from the fact that the way Australia had predicted that they will white wash this team, how we will roll over and lose in Gabba, our team has been trading blows with Aussies. Even if they win tomorrow it will be only on last day of the series and probably the last session too.

Clearly they could not walk the talk, and hence I said not many will give credit to Australia even if they somehow win the series, but high praises for Indian team will be from all the circles.

True.
In our hearts and World's eyes this team had already done more than any other visting with their full squad playing. Whatever be the outcome tomorrow all I want is a hell of a fight like we did at SCG.

It's pouring hard at Gabba right now so we can even expect a delayed start in morning. Rain will be a huge factor tomorrow

Oh and by the way, I am still waiting for McGrath to acknowledge his 4-0 prediction before the series started.

[AtheK]

Originally Posted by harry10

True.
In our hearts and World's eyes this team had already done more than any other visting with their full squad playing. Whatever be the outcome tomorrow all I want is a hell of a fight like we did at SCG.

It's pouring hard at Gabba right now so we can even expect a delayed start in morning. Rain will be a huge factor tomorrow

Oh and by the way, I am still waiting for McGrath to acknowledge his 4-0 prediction before the series started.

Absolutely, and one person who deserves a mention is Ravi Shastri, ya we have all the memes about him, but that guy has worked his heart out in the background. It's not easy to keep motivating team, when everything is going against you, still this team has held up real well and gelled and always looked like one single team.

Except the initial Rohit Sharma controversy(Which could have been easily avoided), everything has been handled extremely professionally. He has to be given a lot of credit after the final ball has been bowled tomorrow, and as we all have now been maintaining, does not matter what the result is.

Absolutely Absolutely proud of this team, I am a Sachin fanboy and always thought Ganguly was he captain who started the journey which was handled well by Dhoni. But this team, it's a different level, so much respect for these boys. Each and everyone needs to be applauded.

[Oxy]

I think Rahane missed a trick by continuing to keep bowling Saini, when we have an established tail cleaner like Natarajan available. We could have been chasing 40 runs lesser.

[jkrishnakj]

Originally Posted by Oxy

I think Rahane missed a trick by continuing to keep bowling Saini, when we have an established tail cleaner like Natarajan available. We could have been chasing 40 runs lesser.

True that. Nats was giving a real hard time to Colin Green in a particular spell and just when I thought he should continue for a couple or more overs, he was changed. From around the wickets, he was bowling well to the right handers. He’s anyways a T20 Yorker specialist and I would have loved to see him have a go at that Aussie tail.