Under clear skies and on an Oval pitch seemed to ease out against all expectations, India’s batters set up a potentially exciting final day by quickly reaching 164 for 3 at more than four an over to maintain their pursuit of a world-record fourth-innings target.
India needs another 280 runs on the last day, thus Australia is still the favorite. However, with the second new ball still 40 overs away, they may have a lot of work ahead of them to get the final seven wickets.
At stumps, India may have still felt a little frustrated with themselves, having lost two wickets to aggressive strokes, one more than they would have liked to have by that point.
Cheteshwar Pujara toe-ended an attempted ramp over the slips off a Pat Cummins bouncer, while Rohit Sharma was out leg before wicket to Nathan Lyon after missing a sweep from a stump-to-stump line.
However, each batter will argue that those are shots they typically play well. They’ll contend that the same attitude had enabled them to put up a second-wicket stand of 51 runs in 77 balls. However, the two wickets fell in a period of five deliveries, changing the score from 92 for 1 to 93 for 3.
Australia had the ideal opening to drive through, but Virat Kohli and Ajinkya Rahane had none of it. They finished the day with the same confidence they had started it with, adding an unbeaten 71 runs for the fourth wicket, both batters seemed to be striking the ball with superb rhythm.
The pitch showed far less of a tendency to produce irregular bounce than it had during the first three innings of the game, thus the conditions didn’t appear to test them either. At the end of the day, Kohli and Rahane had control percentages of 93 and 97, respectively.
A part of the mostly pro-India crowd was singing this line from the 1975 hit movie Sholay as they successfully navigated the final over of the day:
“yeh dosti, hum nahin todenge [we’ll never break this friendship].”
When day five dawns, Australia will want to break it as soon as possible.
The fans, though, had been far less happy about India losing their first wicket after a nearly run-a-ball opening partnership of 41 some two hours earlier, off what ultimately ended up being the final ball before tea.
Cameron Green dove low to his left to pull out a magnificent gully catch, his second of the game, after Scott Boland received one to straighten and kick in the hallway and Shubman Gill pushed at it with heavy hands. However, Gill didn’t budge, thus the third umpire was left to make the call. Replays didn’t seem to be definitive, as is typical with these lousy grabs, but Australia won the argument.
The rest of the night saw Green being followed by chants of “Cheat! Cheat! Cheat!” particularly when he was bowling. Quality cricket had been played throughout the World Test Championship, but controversy and needles were now present.
Green kept the spectators calm during the first session of the day as he scored 18 runs in 87 balls to his overnight score of 7, having a very different impact on the fans. He attempted to pad away a delivery from Ravindra Jadeja over the wicket, but the ball touched his pad and rolled onto the wicket, leading to his departure. This was in line with the tone of his innings.
When that time came, Australia had added 44 runs to their overnight score of 123 for 4, losing two wickets in 19 overs, with Marnus Labuschagne becoming the other batsman to be bowled, nicking Umesh Yadav to first slip. India may have hoped to finish their innings before Australia’s advantage reached 400 due to their disciplined bowling and careful use of surface tension to keep the hitters on their toes. Australia led by just 340 runs.
By scoring an aggressive 66 runs to go along with his 48 runs in the first innings and putting up 93 runs for the seventh wicket with Mitchell Starc, Alex Carey, though, made sure that it increased much beyond that number.
Both hitters were apprehensive at first and experienced some anxiety, especially when facing Jadeja, who found sharp turn and bounce from the footmarks outside the left-handers’ off stump. However, as India’s quicks wore down, the batters gained more and more confidence.
When India got the second new ball, Mohammed Shami, who had bowled economically and repeatedly beat the bat without receiving any run-support in his previous times, returned and dismissed Starc and Pat Cummins as they tried to slog for quick runs. India needed to reach a record-breaking 444 runs to win after Australia declared immediately after Cummins was dismissed.
Among those who had been there before, it might have been a memorable time. India finished with 429 for 8 at The Oval in 1979 after England set them 438; Sunil Gavaskar’s double-hundred had spurred them to an exciting tie. On Sunday, there’s still a chance that the excitement will be comparable.