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There has been a sense of inevitability about this game since late on day 3 despite the commentators enthusiasm at Australia's "Fightback". Yes they havent folded. Marsh and Paine have also probably done enough to stay in the side for the rest of the series but its not going to be enough to trouble what is a very classy Indian team who have really not had to hit top gear to win this game. The scary part is that they have done it without a significant contribution from Kohli.

mikeh wrote: There has been a sense of inevitability about this game since late on day 3 despite the commentators enthusiasm at Australia's "Fightback". Yes they havent folded. Marsh and Paine have also probably done enough to stay in the side for the rest of the series but its not going to be enough to trouble what is a very classy Indian team who have really not had to hit top gear to win this game. The scary part is that they have done it without a significant contribution from Kohli.

Mike we have bowled and fielded well.Just need a solid opener moving Finch into the middle order.Cummings coming in at 6 gives us a pretty long tail.

Mikeh, Kohli scored a bucket load v Eng recently and India lost 4-1....and India beat Aust 2-1 with Kohli scoring very little....fantastic player but India have the likes of Pujara, Rahane and even Shaw to cover any low scores from the skipper.....Aust have no one to cover their Skippers low scores...

It doesn't help when you give away 36 extras in one innings either.

Cummins has now faced more balls than every batsman apart from Marsh. A bit of an indictment on the specialist bats. If Starc and Cummins could get this chase below 50 it could get interesting. Very unlikely though

Oops should keep my big mouth shut, Starc now gone, the end is nigh. Makes you wonder if they could have only batted a bit better in the first innings.....

Freezin: correct bowllers win matches not batsmen. The only excetion to that rule was Bradman in 1936-37.

He needs to have pace bowllers at both ends.

All over India win by 31 runs.
Full credit to the lower order who took it up to the Currys, Gary The Goat finishing unbeaten on 38*.

Todays fight ( mainly by the lower order mind you) will give Australia something to take into the 2nd test. However it should not mask the massive problems that the top and middle order batting is facing right now. Our bowling unit is as good as anyone, the batting is not up to scratch against both swing and spin.

Gutsy effort by the bowlers and their blades....top order should hang their heads in shame....no changes will be made....Reckon everyone will go up a spot in the batting order and Finch will drop down to 6....to "strengthen" the middle order......well played India....closer then they would of liked but hey well deserved anyhow.....

Interesting piece I saw on one of the telecasts during this Test just to show how far our batting depth has plummeted was from around 20 years ago where the Test batting line up at the time was-

M.Taylor (C)
Slater
Langer
M.Waugh
S.Waugh
Ponting
Healy (w/k)

But we had the following State Batsmen with better averages than our current Test batsmen putting pressure on the above side-

(QLD)- Hayden, Love, Maher, Symonds, Law
(NSW)- Bevan, Richards
(VIC)- Elliott, Hodge
(TAS)- Cox, DiVenuto, Hills, Boon, Marsh
(SA)- Blewett, Lehmann, Siddons, Fitzgerald
(WA)- Katich, Hussey, Martyn, Moody, Gilchrist (wk), Campbell

Considering we are struggling to even choose our Test batting line up through poor quality the above just proves how far our batting stocks have fallen away big time in only the last 20 years!