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Match Report:

Scorecard

Windies fight but Smith extends lead

Windies show spirit with bat and ball but Australia remain in control of Boxing Day Test

On a tour that thus far has delivered them little other than embarrassment and criticism, the West Indies might be tempted to take some pride from seeing Australia captain Steve Smith opt out of enforcing the follow-on.

While a first innings deficit of 280 would be viewed as abject by most professional cricket teams and their fans, it represented a triumph of sorts for a side that was eyeing a shortfall of 460 with more than half of their first innings wickets lost when day three began under bright Melbourne sun.

It’s an assessment not meant to patronise, but rather grant kudos to the maligned visitors' most spirited performance of a Test series that had delivered nothing other than free-flowing one-way traffic throughout its preceding five days.

But even though the West Indies tail, in concert with obdurate top-order batsman Darren Bravo, wagged doggedly for almost four hours and nearly 200 runs and their bowlers made an unprecedented early incision into Australia’s batting, this Test is already beyond their reach.

The 458–run lead that Australia holds at stumps means the West Indies will need to post the highest fourth-innings score in their Test history – even more than the record-setting 418 that Brian Lara’s team plundered to win the final match of the already lost 2003 series in the Caribbean.

And that figure is extrapolated from the presumption that Smith – 70 not out at stumps having fashioned a 77-run third-wicket partnership with the irresistible Usman Khawaja (56) – will declare Australia’s total at their overnight score.

WATCH: Smith's audacious tennis shot

Which appeared to be the plan, if the extravagant, helter-skelter strokeplay launched by Khawaja and Smith in the final hour, and the elevation of power-hitter Mitchell Marsh ahead of Adam Voges (averaging more than 540 against the West Indies) during today’s frantic final hour seemed to indicate.

However, Smith will be hoping his bowlers are able to clean up the opposition batting a little more tidily over the warm, sunny days ahead than they managed in two frustrating sessions today.

When James Pattinson cost himself a five-wicket haul and his team the chance of an easy kill when he twice flagrantly overstepped and provided Test debutant Carlos Brathwaite with a pair of charitable acts the likes of which the towering 27-year-old will not see again.

WATCH: Patto's front foot double trouble

No matter how many more Test appearances he makes.

The first – when Brathwaite aimed a heaving swing at the second new ball in the morning’s fourth over only to clean miss the ball and have his stumps scattered – suggested to the Australians that Brathwaite boasted a true tailender’s temperament and the next chance would not be far off.

But more than an hour later, when Brathwaite had lifted his score from the 13 he had at the time of Pattinson’s first transgression to a maiden Test 50, tested the humour and patience of all, not least of all Smith and his bowler who had set and sprung a meticulous trap.

WATCH: Brathwaite riding high on debut

With Pattinson operating around the wicket, Brathwaite expanded his stroke repertoire to take in an ambitious hook shot that produced a top-edge, a well-judged catch by Peter Siddle at fine leg and incredulity when television replays showed Pattinson’s front foot well clear of the bowling crease.

At that point the West Indies, for the first time in the series and for some time before that, looked likely to survive an entire session without losing a wicket when – with lunch buffets being filled and some partially emptied – Brathwaite looped a return catch to Nathan Lyon.

It was appropriate that it was the spinner who made the breakthrough as number three batsman Bravo laboured on an undaunted and unflinching 35no at the other end given he has been the single constant in an ever-changing Australia bowling attack this year.

WATCH: Nathan Lyon claims four first-innings scalps

As Josh Hazlewood, Siddle and Pattinson have come and gone at various times, and Ryan Harris, Mitchell Johnson, Mitchell Starc and Shane Watson gone (with only Starc to return), Lyon has proved not only immovable but more often than not invaluable.

The 28-year-old finished today with his team’s best bowling figures – 4-66 from 29 probing overs – which carries him to 45 Test wickets for 2015 and the chance of becoming the first Australia off-spinner since Hugh Trumble in 1902 to reach the milestone of 50 scalps in a calendar year.

He could have finished with a five-wicket bag if the inside edge that Bravo offered on 48 had not clipped his back pad on the way through to ‘keeper Peter Nevill, which meant the ball struck him on the chest rather than in the gloves.

As could Pattinson if he had been more conscious of his front-foot placement.

And Siddle might have grabbed better figures than the 2-40 he finished with, having been on a hat-trick on Sunday evening, if one of the sharp, flush-off-the-face-of-the-bat chances that Kemar Roach flicked to short leg had somehow struck Joe Burns in the palm of his hand rather than on the knee or wrist.

Amid all those near misses, Bravo had been a model of patience and resistance and deserved better than to be the final wicket to fall, smartly snapped up by Smith at short gully to give Pattinson his fourth wicket.

WATCH: Bravo fifty lifts spirits

Although not without a final agonising video review to check his foot placement.

The belief the West Indies seemed to have gained from their rearguard batting effort looked set to translate into changed fortunes for their bowlers when first innings century maker Joe Burns nicked off for six.

And then nine overs later when David Warner was caught between guiding a short ball from Holder over the slips or letting it harmlessly pass, and ended up being caught limply at gully to give Brathwaite a maiden Test wicket to complement his first-up 50.

WATCH: Brathwaite's hilarious celebration

But from there the Australian batsmen treated the bowling with increasing disdain, as Smith pulled out a series of outrageous strokes including an overhead smash played from several feet outside leg stump and an audacious pull shot that flew – as planned – from low on the bat through extra cover.

At day’s end, the West Indies could leave the field for the first time on tour with the comparative comfort of knowing they had fought a good fight against a far-better credentialled opponent.

But they still find themselves staring squarely at a hefty defeat, whether it arrives tomorrow or on the scheduled day five.

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