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

Key events

Virat Kohli was one of the key wickets to fall on day three as the India great continues his battle against Father Time as much as Australia’s pace attack.

Geoff Lemon has written superbly about the gradual decline of the four outstanding batters of recent times and whether Kohli can consistently rediscover something resembling his former glories.

Weather update: Promising signs for Australia with sunny skies overhead as we near the early start of play at 9.50am local time in Brisbane / 10.50am AEDT. But rain is very much forecast throughout the day as well as a high of 29 degrees.

Australia were able to build momentum across a rain-interrupted day three at the Gabba with India already four wickets down. The tourists’ first target today will be reaching 245 to avoid giving Australia the option to enforce the follow-on. But here is how day three played out:

Preamble

Martin Pegan

Hello and welcome to live coverage of the fourth day of the third Test between Australia and India at the Gabba in Brisbane.

Australia made the most of the rain-affected third day to build a strong first-innings total of 445 and tear through the India top order to have them 51-4. But the hosts are now in a race against time – and the weather – to claim India’s six remaining first-innings wickets as well as dismiss their entire batting lineup a second time. The star-studded pace trio have threatened in the limited time they have been able to take the ball in hand with opener KL Rahul the only India batter to get set and look particularly comfortable. But as Australia showed in their first knock, once a batter is set and the ball softens, the Gabba can be a good deck for batting. The impact of the stop-start action across the opening days as well as moisture in the air now looms as an added danger for batters, though there are also signs of cracks that will tempt the spinners. We’ll be back with more of a weather and pitch report shortly.

First ball is scheduled to be at 9.50am local time or 10.50pm AEDT. I’ll be covering the first session and a half, when Angus Fontaine will jump into the hot seat. In the meantime, send me an email or find me @martinpegan on Bluesky or X. Let’s get into it!