Lunch Australia 260 and 285 (Smith 109, Ashwin 4-119, Jadeja 3-65) lead India 105 by 440 runs
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Steven Smith scored his first hundred in India © Associated Press
Steven Smith‘s 18th Test century – and his fifth in consecutive Tests against India – ensured that Virat Kohli’s men will need to break the all-time record for the highest successful chase in Test history in order to win in Pune. Given the unfamiliar turning conditions and the quality of India’s spin attack, it is hard to imagine Smith has scored a more satisfying Test hundred than this, which was his first on Indian soil.
He resumed on 59 and Australia with a lead of 298; by lunch on day three Smith been dismissed for 109 and Australia had been bowled out too – lunch having been delayed at nine-down – but India needed 441 to win. The highest successful Test chase was 418, achieved by West Indies against Australia in Antigua in 2003, when Shivnarine Chanderpaul and Ramnaresh Sarwan scored twin match-winning hundreds.
India will thus need something spectacular, almost miraculous, from at least a couple of members of their batting order. And while the skill at handling turning conditions is there, nothing from the way they batted in the first innings would suggest they are in with a chance. Only three men reached double figures in India’s first innings of this Test, and only one of those – KL Rahul – made it past 20.
Smith and Mitchell Marsh resumed with Australia’s total on 143 for 4, but Marsh added only 10 to his overnight total before he pressed forward to Ravindra Jadeja and edged behind to be well taken by Wriddhiman Saha for 31. However, there was enough lower-order support for Smith to ensure the total kept ticking over: he put on 35 with Matthew Wade and then 42 with Mitchell Starc.
Australia knew their best approach was to play their shots and build the lead as quickly as possible on a difficult surface. Wade struck two boundaries before he edged behind off Umesh Yadav for 20, and Starc pressed home the advantage further by clobbering three sixes and a couple of fours during his breezily entertaining 30 off 31 deliveries.
Smith played his natural game, using his feet and scoring freely on both sides of the wicket. He had ridden his luck on the second day, when he was dropped three times, but he made those opportunities count. He brought up his hundred from his 187th delivery and it continued a remarkable run of form against India: he scored centuries against them in all four of the Tests during the 2014-15 series in India.
Eventually, Smith’s luck ran out when he went back and tried to pull Jadeja but was trapped lbw, and a review was unable to save him. But still Australia had more runs to come: Starc was caught in the deep off Ashwin, Nathan Lyon was trapped lbw to Umesh Yadav for 13, and Steve O’Keefe was the last man to fall, caught behind off Jadeja for 6.
Only one Australian partnership had failed to reach double figures, and that was the last one. Everyone had contributed, though nobody more than Smith, who now has to marshal his bowlers to defend the hefty target in order to become the first Australian team to win a Test in India since 2004.
Brydon Coverdale is an assistant editor at ESPNcricinfo. @brydoncoverdale
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Source: ESPN Crickinfo