-Atreyo Mukhopadhyay
Boring? Yes, because spectators these days prefer watching quick runs rather than a quiet contest between bat and ball.
Monotonous? Perhaps, because the day’s play was mostly about India’s dogged batting against some restrictive lines bowled by the Australians.
A spectacle? Not quite, because there were not many moments that sent the pulses of the spectators or TV audiences racing.
Is that all? Not at all.
It may not have a very exciting day of cricket from a viewer’s point of view, but the contest was engrossing in its own way. Neither side was ready to give an inch. Although the sparks did not fly, they fought tooth and nail. It was a game of patience where the two sides waited for the other to blink. At the end of the third day of the fourth Test, nobody did.
Even on a flat surface offering precious little to the bowlers, India’s task was challenging. They were batting after having conceded 480 and a few false steps would have meant handing the Australians a chance to exert pressure on them. There was one false step early in the day, when Rohit Sharma lobbed a ball to the hands of short cover that he would hit for four 9.9 out of 10 times.
Thanks to a polished century by Shubman Gill and contributions from Cheteshwar Pujara and Virat Kohli, the Indians achieved their primary objective of not losing too many wickets. The effort looked arduous at times, even painstaking perhaps, but that was the need of the hour. Don’t have to look pretty. Be ugly if need be, but don’t throw away wickets. That’s exactly what they did to stay in the match. The job is not done yet, because this is what they will have to do again for a couple more sessions on Day 4. But they deserve credit for sticking to their task.
Oh! Did we say ‘be ugly if need be’? Gill was one batter who looked so different from everybody else. Playing the most attractive innings of the fourth Test and possibly the series, the opener was elegance personified on way to his second Test hundred. There was something that set him apart from some of his more illustrious teammates and that was his poised and stylish stroke play. Yes, the pitch was perfect for batting, but others did not make for such exquisite viewing while playing shots.
Drives on the front foot, punches through the covers off the back foot, flicks and nudges off his pads and stepping out to clear the infield on occasions, Gill unfurled a range of shots. There was this reverse sweep also, as well as that unorthodox sweep down the leg side just past the keeper’s reach, which took him to three figures. A mature head on young shoulders, he ran the singles hard and did not allow the Aussies to impose upon India prolonged spells of unproductive overs.
It was easier said than done, considering the innovative field placements by Steve Smith. Once the Aussie skipper realised that wickets will not fall unless batters committed mistakes, he asked his bowlers to bowl on one side of the wicket and placed most of his fielders on that side. Nathan Lyon bowled a leg stump line with six-seven men on that side, while Mitchell Starc came from around the wicket with a heavily packed off side. Gill and Pujara were forced into a shell for a while in the second session because of this.
But once Cameron Green replaced a tired Starc and continued to bowl with a packed off side field, Gill started finding the gaps on that side and stuck a few sweetly timed fours. Then he took on Lyon and the other off-spinner Todd Murphy to hit them through the packed leg side. The shackles were broken and the opener was soon celebrating what Rohit and Pujara should be ruing missing out on. Gill, too, must be regretting that he failed to carry on and convert this hundred into a really big one.
Batting from the other end looked so different. Scoring a Test half-century after 15 innings, Kohli was not off to the smoothest of starts and took time to settle down. He started looking more comfortable after that and raised hopes what might be a first Test century in more than three years if he gets there. Without jinxing him, let us say that India need him out in the middle, considering that the job far from done. A few quick wickets can bring Australia back in this game and India must get as close to 480 as possible. They will start Day 4 trailing by 191 runs.
For India to get there, it will take another day of unattractive and practical cricket. At stumps on Day 3, Australia appeared to be the side which cannot lose this match and even think of forcing a win. To blunt their chances, Kohli and the other batters will have to show the kind of patience the team showed on Saturday and forget about the scoring rate. So fasten your seat belts and instead of a breezy take-off, get ready for another day of potentially dull yet hard-nosed cricket.