{"id":22693,"date":"2021-01-15T07:45:26","date_gmt":"2021-01-15T08:45:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=22693"},"modified":"2021-01-15T09:00:41","modified_gmt":"2021-01-15T09:00:41","slug":"india-fight-back-but-australia-hold-edge-in-decisive-test","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=22693","title":{"rendered":"India fight back but Australia hold edge in decisive Test"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Brisbane:\u00a0An under-strength India fought back in the final session to leave the fourth Test against Australia evenly poised after the opening day at the Gabba in Brisbane on Friday.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Australia finished the first day on 274 for five, with Cameron Green on 28 and Tim Paine alongside him on 38 to put the home side marginally in front on a benign Gabba wicket.<\/p>\n

With the four-match series locked at 1-1, Australia need to win the final Test to regain the Border-Gavaskar Trophy.<\/p>\n

They looked certain to be in a much stronger position when they reached 200 for three shortly after tea, with Marnus Labuschagne and Matthew Wade scoring freely.<\/p>\n

But they lost Wade (45) to a rash attempted pull shot then Labuschagne for a superb 108 in the space of 13 runs to leave them at 213 for five, before Green and Paine steadied the innings against a tiring attack.<\/p>\n

India’s efforts were especially admirable considering they were fielding two debutants in their bowling attack following injuries to Jasprit Bumrah and Ravi Ashwin.<\/p>\n

They also lost fast bowler Navdeep Saini to a groin injury midway through the second session.<\/p>\n

Perfect Start<\/strong><\/h3>\n

India started the game as underdogs following the loss of four players from the drawn third Test, which finished on Monday in Sydney.<\/p>\n

Pace spearhead Bumrah (abdomen), off-spinner Ashwin (back), batsman Hanuma Vihari (hamstring) and all-rounder Ravi Jadeja (broken thumb) were all ruled out.<\/p>\n

T. Natarajan and Sundar made their debuts while there were also recalls for batsman Mayank Agarwal and seam bowler Shardul Thakur.<\/p>\n

By contrast, Australia only made one change, with Harris coming in for Will Pucovski, who injured his shoulder while fielding in Sydney.<\/p>\n

Yet India got away to the perfect start when David Warner fell on the last ball of the first over, edging Siraj to second slip, where Rohit Sharma took a superb catch diving to his right.<\/p>\n

Natarajan shared the new ball with Siraj and kept the pressure on with some tight bowling, his opening spell of six overs going for just eight runs.<\/p>\n

The pressure eventually told when Thakur, playing just his second Test, struck with his first ball, Harris chipping a simple catch to Sundar at square leg to leave Australia 17 for two.<\/p>\n

But Labuschagne and Steve Smith, Australia’s saviours in so many recent matches, once again steadied the rocking ship.<\/p>\n

Smith, who roared back to form with a century in Sydney, was impressive but on 36 he clipped a ball to short midwicket to Sharma to give Sundar his first Test scalp.<\/p>\n

Australia, now 87 for three, should have lost Labuschagne in the next over when he edged Saini to gully, but the normally reliable Ajinkya Rahane spilled a simple chance.<\/p>\n

To make matters worse, Saini appeared to injure his groin in the delivery stride and left the field.<\/p>\n

Cheteshwar Pujara grassed a much harder chance when Labuschagne was on 48, but from that moment the Queenslander was in fine form, stroking nine boundaries and two all-run fours on his way to his century.<\/p>\n

Siraj was the pick of the Indian attack with 1-51 off 19 testing overs, while Natarajan (2-63) also impressed despite showing signs of fatigue late in the day.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Brisbane:\u00a0An under-strength India fought back in the final session to leave the fourth Test against Australia evenly poised after the opening day at the Gabba […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22693"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22693"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22693\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22695,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22693\/revisions\/22695"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22693"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22693"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22693"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}