India vs Australia - 3rd Test, Day 3: Talking Points

Australia beat India at their home ground by 9 wickets to take the side through to World Test Championship (WTC) final to be played at the Oval in June 2023. Meanwhile, this is just the third Test loss for India at home in the last 45 matches. The decision to bat first backfired on India as they were skittled out for a mere 109 runs in 33.2 overs. Despite surviving a couple of chances in the first over of the match, Rohit Sharma eventually got out playing a reckless shot from where the collapse began. India could never recover from this position and eventually lose the match by 9 wickets.

Ashwin gets an early breakthrough

Chasing a small yet tricky target of 76 runs to win, Australia lost Usman Khawaja in just the second delivery of the day as the spin mastermind of India, Ravichandran Ashwin got the first dismissal with an outside edge to send him back to the dressing room for a silver duck, the Aussie batters started chipping away with runs and got closer to the target with every passing over.

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Labuschagne and Head take Australia to victory

Marnus Labuschagne (28*) and Travis Head (49*) batted very patiently in the first ten overs to down the shoulders of the Indian players, initially they were chipping away with runs but soon started the counter-attack and stitched an unbeaten partnership of 78 runs for the second wicket and helped the side get a point to make the series score line 2-1 with one test to go.

Top performers in this test

While Khawaja scored a brilliant half-century, Ashwin and Umesh picked three wickets each. Jadeja picked four top-order wickets. Matthew Kuhnemann was the pick of the bowlers for the Aussies, he finished with his career-best figures of 9-2-16-5. Nathan Lyon supported Kuhnemann with a three-wickets haul. The decision to bat first backfired on India as they were skittled out for a mere 109 runs in 33.2 overs.