Australia Still Ahead But India Fight Back At The End Of Third Day's Play At Adelaide

By the third day of any Test Match one usually understands which way the match is headed. In the first Border Gavaskar Test Match of the series at the Adelaide Oval Australia still have their noses in front but India have fought manfully all day. At the end of the day India are 369 for the loss of 5 wickets with Rohit Sharma and Wriddhiman Saha not out at the crease.

The Australia captain declared their innings over night at 517 for the loss of seven wickets. The Indian opening partnership got to 50 runs in 13.2 overs without losing a wicket. At lunch they were 119 for two. Virat Kohli was welcomed to the crease with a bouncer from Mitchell Johnson that hit the batsman on the helmet, there was no malice involved just plain hard Test Match cricket. Virat Kohli responded in the best possible way by scoring a century.

Both Mitchell Johnson and Nathan Lyon got a couple of wickets each. Johnson bowled a 145 km/h delivery that took the edge off India's set opening batsman Murli Vijay to the safe hands of the wicket keeper Brad Haddin for 53. He also got the most important wicket right at the end of the day when he bounced Virat Kholi to lure him to play one pull shot too many that resulted in him getting holed at the mid-wicket boundary after going past his hundred.

Nathan Lyon would be most happy with his performance. On a flat batting wicket he got two Indian batsmen out by genuinely deceiving them with flight and bounce. Cheteshwar Pujara and Ajinkya Rahane are both very good players of spin bowling and both had gone past their respective half centuries when Lyon struck with two nearly unplayable deliveries.

As usual the first session of the fourth day will be very significant. If Australia manage to get the Indians out quickly they can still go for a win. If the Indians bat till lunch the odds for a draw increases significantly.