Australia left to stare down the barrel

A Sydney thunderstorm achieved what Australia's far-less-threatening batting had not managed across the preceding hours of day three and stalled India's charge to victory and a historic series triumph.

When peals of thunder and heavy showers lashed the SCG leading to play being abandoned half an hour before the scheduled time for day-three stumps, Australia were staggering at 6-236 and still 386 runs adrift of India's thumping first innings.

With further showers forecast for the remaining two days of the four-match Domain Series, the possibility of enforcing the follow-on looms as an enticing prospect for the dominant visitors if they can capture the final four Australia wickets tomorrow morning.

Although in-form allrounder Pat Cummins (25 not out) in concert with his recalled specialist batter partner Peter Handscomb (28 not out) stand as a final line of defence and the most realistic chance of Australia pushing for a draw.

Regardless of how long they can continue their union upon resumption, India cannot lose this Test and will – at some point over the coming two days – claim their first Test series win in Australia after 70 years of trying.

It will be a deserved success, so dominant have Virat Kohli's men been over the past week and a bit after the series was locked 1-1 in the wake of tight encounters in Adelaide and Perth.

And while India's batting always loomed as their great strength, it was the spin bowlers Kuldeep Yadav (3-71) and Ravindra Jadeja (2-62) who proved the difference today after the tourists' quicks had performed that role in previous Tests.

From Australia's perspective, the tale was harrowingly the same.

The manner in which their not out batters Marcus Harris (19) and Usman Khawaja (5) began under baking heat and crippling expectation suggested Australia had finally found batting conditions in which they might flourish.

Having failed to reach 423 – the notional follow-on target, accepting that India's 7(dec)-622 was beyond the home team's considerable limitations – in any of their previous six attempts in this series, Australia's new opening pair played with freedom.

Khawaja was especially fluent, having survived a straightforward offered to keeper Rishabh Pant the previous evening before he had scored and giving every indication he would make India pay for their lapse.

He worked the spinners into gaps and handled the seamers with aplomb, moving almost imperceptibly to 27 such was the grace and ease of his strokeplay.

It was therefore against the run of play, and to the demonstrable disappointment of Khawaja that he opened his shoulders in trying to hit wrist-spinner Kuldeep down the ground, only for the ball to take the inside of the bat and shovel a catch to mid-wicket.

The fact that Australia's fifth opening combination of the past year produced their second-best first-wicket stand of the summer gave hope that blossomed brighter when Khawaja was replaced by Marnus Labuschagne.

The unlikely No.3 might well have been dismissed from the first ball he faced.

The irrepressible Jasprit Bumrah zeroed in on Labuschagne's front foot with a spearing yorker, and it was only the belated arrival of the toe of the Queenslander's bat that stung the ball's momentum and sent it scuttling past the base of off-stump.

From such a fraught start, Labuschagne settled with reassuring speed into his innings, executing a couple of accomplished inside-out cover drives against Kuldeep and a scorching sweep against the same bowler that brought his second boundary.

Amid Labuschange's arrival as a No.3 in Test cricket, Harris confirmed his place as an international opener by reaching his second half-century – from just 67 balls faced, laced with five boundaries.

He then pushed on to a personal best Test score of 79, which also represented the highest individual tally for any Australia batter in a series that has been bereft of individual batting highlights for the host nation.

But with dreams of a maiden Test century beginning to materialise among the pink-clad Australia fans sweating through near 38C heat, if not within Harris himself, the opener brought about his own demise.

Anchored to the crease, Harris looked to delicately guide a sharply spinning delivery from Ravindra Jadeja behind point but connected with the blade's bottom-edge and could scarcely believe as the ball bounced and clipped his leg stump.

As has been the case throughout this Domain Series, and in the Test campaigns preceding, the fall of one Australia wicket brought with it a bout of middle-order skittishness.

On the same surface where India romped to 622 across the first two days of this Test, Australia conspired to lose 3-24 – the very heart of their top-order batting – in less than nine overs.

Harris's dismissal was followed by that of Shaun Marsh, who has now reached 50 just once in 19 Test innings since scoring 156 in the corresponding SCG Test a year ago during which time his average is 18.

 

Marsh fell for less than half that recent average today, pushing hard forward at Jadeja who extracted sufficient bounce and turn to find the shoulder of the left-hander's bat and the resultant catch looped to slip.

The double stumble looked likely to become a free-fall when Labuschagne was dismissed barely three overs later.

By that stage, the 51st over of Australia's now faltering innings, India's seamers had gained appreciable reverse-swing with the ball, a trick that has eluded Australia's quicks throughout the entirety of this campaign.

But the visitors' assiduous management of the ball, which often sees fast bowlers Bumrah and Mohammed Shami waiting at the top of their bowling marks between deliveries while furious polishing is undertaken by fielders, threw further doubt into the already anxious Australians.

Labuschagne saw a ball from Shami homing in on his front pad where the India quicks had set their battle plan, and flicked it neatly away on the leg side only to see Ajinkya Rhana pluck a neat catch tumbling low to his right at short mid-wicket.

Travis Head and Peter Handscomb were able to halt the collapse and held tough for an hour, during which they defended diligently and added a patient 40 runs.

In looking to up the tempo, however, Head scooped a floating Kuldeep full-toss from low on the bat back to a gleeful bowler.

That brought Tim Paine to the crease, faced by an all-too familiar scenario whereby his specialist batters had largely failed and he was charged with the responsibility of rescue.

But that proved a task beyond the weary skipper, the fatigue formed from so many days spent marshalling his troops in the field evident in the ambitious cover drive he aimed at Kuldeep, without the benefit of accompanying foot movement.

 

As a result, the fizzing left-arm leg-break surged through the wide gap separating bat from front pad and tilted back Paine's leg stump to leave Australia six-down and almost 450 in arrears.

With only two days of torrential tempest able to offer them any hope of avoiding defeat.

Domain Test Series v India

Dec 6-10: India won by 31 runs

Dec 14-18: Australia won by 146 runs

Dec 26-30: India won by 137 runs

Jan 3-7: Fourth Test, SCG

Australia squad: Tim Paine (c, wk), Josh Hazlewood (vc), Mitch Marsh (vc), Pat Cummins, Aaron Finch, Peter Handscomb, Marcus Harris, Travis Head, Usman Khawaja, Marnus Labuschagne, Nathan Lyon, Shaun Marsh, Peter Siddle, Mitchell Starc

India squad: Virat Kohli (c), Murali Vijay, KL Rahul, Mayank Agarwal, Cheteshwar Pujara, Ajinkya Rahane, Hardik Pandya, Hanuma Vihari, Rohit Sharma, Rishabh Pant (wk), Parthiv Patel (wk), Ravi Ashwin, Ravi Jadeja, Kuldeep Yadav, Mohammed Shami, Ishant Sharma, Umesh Yadav, Jasprit Bumrah, Bhuvneshwar Kumar