Australia v India: fourth men’s cricket Test, day four

Players are coming onto the field. Some Indian squad members are still taking high catches as the umpires walk out. That’s dedication. Now they’re on the move.

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The special part of yesterday was Reddy’s innings, one that he couldn’t have assembled without the partnership support from Washington Sundar. So that’s what I wrote about at stumps.

Preamble

Geoff Lemon

Day 4, and the match is still is alive. I love that for us. December 28th may be known forevermore as Nitish Kumar Reddy Day. That’s unlikely, but it wouldn’t be outrageous if it happened. It was one hell of an innings from the young player to assemble his first century in Tests and to do so from No 8 in the order. India still trail by a lot, 116 runs, but they have a path towards at least scrapping this out for a draw, or if they happen to bowl well in the third innings then they could be in the frame for a win.

So the scores are: Australia 474, India 358-9. Of course, the advantage is still very much with Australia, and all they have to do is bat decently in the third innings to put a win out of reach for India, and shoot for one themselves.

First, though, they need to finish off Reddy. He reached 105 not out by the time bad light and rain ended play early on Day 3. He’s still there, and he’ll have strike. But he only has Mohammed Siraj for company. So this could all be over in a couple of minutes, or he might farm the strike for a while and whittle down that deficit still further.

Let’s see.