Travis Head leads charge to seal emphatic chase for Australia
Australia's counter-punching Indore victory confirms their spot in the WTC final this June
Australia's counter-punching Indore victory confirms their spot in the WTC final this June
Scorer: M Venkat Raghav | Commentator: Abhimanyu Bose
11.25am That's a wrap from Indore. Australia are in the WTC final, while India need to win in Ahmedabad to secure their spot against Australia at Lord's. If India fail to win the fourth Test, a 2-0 series win in New Zealand could see Sri Lanka knock Rohit and co. out. You can check out Hemant's report to catch up on the action today. For now, it's Abhimanyu signing off on behalf of Hemant Brar and Venkat Raghav.
11.24am Here's Labuschagne: "Just needed to make sure that whatever it is, we are there. They bowled beautifully and we held the fort down. But luckily after that period, it opened up. I think the most important thing in a partnership is, if you're under pressure and you see that your partners is going well, you just make sure you hang in there. That's what I did today, I locked down one end. Everyone just revisited their options, their plans, their technique. For me, I batted five or six different ways. I've ramped, I've swept, I've done a lot. But as the series goes on, you'll see that I didn't play as many shots. And I think you just need to keep trusting your defence. And once you get a feel, the game will open up naturally. One thing we've learned here is that it's never game over here. It just shows you the conditions, how tough it is. But I think as a unit we have the right combination. I think it's just about trusting in each other's skills and continuing to grow and learn. As I was telling Rohit when we were walking out "I want to do what you do. You guys are the best in these conditions". It just comes down to a partnership. And we knew that it was about getting one partnership and we'll break 76."
11.05am It's time for the post-match presentation ceremony.
Nathan Lyon is the player of the match: "It's been a pretty remarkable series. But to come out here and put out a good team performance it was pretty special. I don't have all the skills and all the tricks in the trade but the one thing I have is the belief in my stock ball. And I think if you have that, you can get success. I don't think I've mastered it. I've been lucky enough to challenge against some of the best players to play the game, the likes of Virat and Pujji and the rest of the guys. I just like challenging myself."
Steve Smith: "I think obviously that first day, losing the toss and having to bowl first. But our bowlers did really well, specially Kuhnemann. All our bowlers contributed. With the bat, Usman was really good in the first innings. We had some good partnerships. India bowled really well in the back end, we had a bit of a collapse. We had to toil hard yesterday, Pujji played a good knock, but all our bowlers did really well. It was a complete performance in the end. We are thinking of Patty back home, our thoughts are with him. But I really enjoyed this week. I like captaining in this part of the world. I think I understand a lot of the intricacies. It's a place where I really enjoy and I think I did a reasonable job this week. The approach will be much the same. We have to see how the conditions are like. It's good to be in the WTC final but it's just about playing good cricket. Hopefully we can finish the series well."
Rohit Sharma: "When you lose a Test match, there's a lot of things that didn't go our way. To start with, we didn't bat well in the first innings. We understand how important it is to put runs on the board in the first innings. And obviously when they got a 80-90 run lead, we needed to put in a big performance with the bat but we couldn't do that, taking just a 75-run lead. Honestly, we haven't thought about it yet. We just finished this Test now so we need to regroup and try. We need to understand that we need to improve as a team. When you are playing on challenging pitches you have to bowl. We allowed their bowlers to bowl in one spot. Not to take any credit away from their bowlers, Nathan Lyon especially. We had to try and be brave, which I think we were not. We can take a lot of credit as well, how we batted in the first two games. One odd game can happen where things don't come together, but even then you need players to come together and chip in. We wanted a few guys to stand up but it didn't happen. We were slightly behind and we did not apply ourselves the way we would have liked to.
Jesse: "@SACHU I think those celebratory beers will make the hard feelings fade away pretty fast!"
shaun: "How long since Australia won a test in India?" Well, they won the first Test in Pune when they last toured India, back in 2017.
Here's Travis Head: "I just tried to take it one step a time. We have seen it throughout the series that with the wickets, the quality of bowling, anything can happen. So we were just trying to take it one ball at a time. It's just nice to contribute. [On reacting after the first two Tests] Make sure to go out and execute in the first innings and I think we did that really well. In the lead up to the test series, we had to make sure to be clear in our plans. We had to make some changes, but I think we've done a fantastic job to come back after being under pressure in the first two games. We knew it wasn't going to be clean sailing. There were going to be times when India were going to be on top, times when we could get the runs. It was important that we just kept a calm head. There was no message coming from the top. Unbelievable. He does what he does. He has the most wickets in the subcontinent for an Australian bowler. Long may he continue."
10.50am Australia have made short work of their small target, despite losing Usman Khawaja in the very first over. Head took the attack to the Indian spinners and his 49 off 53 helped Australia seal victory without any nervy moments. Labuschagne also joined in the party, and it took them just under 19 overs to get the job done. Australia have now qualified for the WTC final.
SACHU: "Wow! How selfish of Labuschagne to leave Head hanging on 49*"
Peter: "We can lose our 6/12 now"
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