Melbourne: Irrespective of a lot of speculations about the match the test ultimately ends in a draw on the last day of the match. Once the result was declared, it was an ambivalent feeling for the Indian team and fans. Although India played successfully to draw the match but they couldn’t prevent the Aussies from winning the c on their soil.

Australia win series against India

There was some confusion in the mind of captain Steve Smith as he could have declared the inning much earlier. In fact Smith wasted the first session of the day’s play. He waited for Shaun Marsh to complete his ton, but unfortunately he got out on 99. Australia, immediately declared the inning when Australia’s score was 318/9. Thus, they set a target of 384 runs for the visitors within the minimum 70 overs allotted for the purpose. However the match was drawn four over before the end of final day’s play when the two captains Smith and Dhoni agreed on it.

Earlier Indian vice captain Virat Kohli was confident of chasing down any total that the Australians would give them as a target but with the loss of few early wickets India’s dream of winning the match and keeping the series alive was already broken at the start of India’s second inning itself.

Indian opener Shikhar Dhawan got out on a duck and KL Rahul was also dismissed early in India’s second inning. Rahul was promoted to the third position up in the batting order, but the batsman failed once again. Murli Vijay too failed in the ninth over and India were struggling at 19/3. It was imminent that team India was playing for draw from then onwards.

Virat Kohli and Ajinkya Rahane showed some guts to fight it out in the middle. Kohli played each delivery with much caution and scored his half century too. The classy batsman was dismissed on 54 but by then he had already built a much needed 85 runs partnership for the fourth wicket stand with Ajinkya Rahane. India’s score was 104/4 at that time.

Cheteshwar Pujara supported Rahane well after Kohli’s dismissal. However, when they slightly took the game out of Australia’s hand and set for a draw, Pujara was bowled out for 21 by the Mitchell Johnson.

Rahane was also dismissed soon when he tried to pull a short pitch delivery off Hazlewood, but caught out by Shaun Marsh at mid-wicket. Once Rahane was dismissed India landed into a huge trouble with 142/6. Now draw was the only option for team India. Captain Dhoni and Ashwin played very vigilantly and they did not make any mistake to put India in a further trouble.

Before the start of this test match Australia had already taken an unassailable lead of 2-0. They only needed a draw to win this test series. They worked as per the strategy and Steve Smith played the role of a defensive captain, he first ensured a huge target for team India so that the visitors don’t get any upper hand in the match. Aussie all-rounder Ryan Harris was awarded Man of the Match for his 74 runs in the 1st innings and a total of six wicket haul in the match.

Tags: Australia, Border Gavaskar Trophy, Boxing Day Test, Cricket, India, MS Dhoni, Virat Kohli