Australia, after recovering from the faltering at the beginning of their second innings, have achieved an impressive lead of 333 runs at the loss of one wicket. India looked in a promising position on Sunday – they had the hosts at 91 for 6 – but they struggled to reach the end and will have to break the record for the most successful chase at the MCG to win the Test.
“I felt like we were probably ahead the whole game,” Labuschagne said. I was sitting upstairs with my batting coach Michael Di Venuto and I was just watching every ball. We were running for runs, overthrows, leg byes, running to the last bit, everything was there. I mean. That we also if the game had ended on a no-ball with four wickets on the last ball, I mean those who say Test cricket is not exciting, I mean I am a player and I was watching and I was excited.
The natural wear and tear of the pitch as the Test match goes into its fifth day has brought a new challenge for the batsmen for the first time in this series.
“As the game has progressed, the bounce has become less and more inconsistent,” Labuschagne said while wearing a bandage on his right hand where Akash Deep’s ball had bounced and hit him. “So we’re hitting more balls on the stumps, more balls are skidding and we’re getting it through the data. And that’s probably the big difference. The seam movement is probably the same (throughout the game), but just the bounce. The quantity is quite low, which makes it very difficult to bat there, more balls of shorter length are hitting the stumps, balls are skidding, today some balls were bowled high.”
“Regarding the pitch, I think you need to make one or two good partnerships, I think there was movement on the pitch right from the first day,” Reddy said. The pitch is doing something and we can see later on the fourth day that it was doing a little bit more, but we don’t need to put too much pressure as if the pitch is doing this or that, we need to go accordingly immediately. Situation.”
Does it help that India have a century-scorer as they prepare to chase a big target? “Obviously when I come to bat in the second innings, it’s a new innings, I can’t start my innings with 100,” Reddy said. “So it’s a new innings, I have to start from the beginning, I have to be like the way I performed in the first innings, and let’s see what the team plans, and we will plan accordingly, And I feel I have to leave 100 runs behind and start a new innings.
We will come back stronger in the batting order, what we did in the first innings, we will correct the mistakes… We have to take the last wicket first and then we will plan accordingly.”
