India vs Australia | Talking points from Day 3 at Dharamshala

India vs Australia | Talking points from Day 3 at Dharamshala

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Ravindra Jadeja's all-round performance, on Day 3 of the final Test in Dharamsala, where he scored a very important 63 and claimed 3 wickets put India in the driving seat. After restricting Australia to 137, India need just 87 runs on Day 4 to win the game and reclaim the Border-Gavaskar trophy.

Brief scores: Australia 300/10 (Smith 111; Kuldeep 4/68) & 137/10 (Maxwell 45; Jadeja 3/24) lead India 332/10 (Jadeja 63; Lyon 5/92) & 19/0 (Rahul 13*) by 87 runs.

Australia cannot have any complaints about the Dharamsala wicket

After the first two pitches in the ongoing series received “poor” and “below-average” ratings respectively and Smith called the Ranchi pitch as the “darkest track he had ever seen”, the Australians can have no complaints about the surface provided by the HPCA at Dharamsala. The wicket has everything - from something for the pacers and spinners to the batsmen as well. For India, the spinners claimed six wickets while the pacers got the other three. For Australia, it was a similar story as well, with the spinners and seamers splitting the wickets 6-4.

But it wasn’t just the bowlers who were having a blast in the scenic stadium. Steve Smith and KL Rahul showed that if you got off to a good start, a big score was not that difficult to achieve on this track unless you threw away your wicket - cue Rahul. In this series, we have not had an even contest between bat and ball, with the first two pitches favoring bowlers and the Ranchi one supporting batsmen. The Dharmasala wicket is a welcome change from the norm. 

Jadeja is sledging-resistant 

With Australia struggling to gain any sort of foothold in the morning session of the Day 3, Matthew Wade started the old Aussie tradition of sledging and this time he chose a wrong bloke, Ravindra Jadeja. The Indian all-rounder, however, seemed all too relaxed to be troubled with what the Aussies were throwing his way. From talking about how Jadeja was never picked for the Indian Test team that toured abroad to insulting the Indian team's failures in overseas conditions, Jadeja took it all in his stride and responded the only way the Aussies didn't want him to do - with the bat. 

His heroics in the Ranchi Test took India past the 600-run mark but today, his innings was even more important. Not only did he outscore all of his teammates, but he did it at a pace that even Steve Smith and David Warner had not been able to match. He waited to get to his half-century before he came back with his trademark Rajput celebration of swinging his bat like a sword.

It was a stark contrast from yesterday when he reacted to the sledging by smashing Lyon for a six over long on. Today, however, he played the innings that put India in the driver’s seat at a crucial juncture in the game.

David Warner has failed the Aussies

Coming into the series, most people felt that India would completely decimate the Australians and it was down to a few players to make it a respectable defeat. The batting responsibilities were to be shared by David Warner and Steve Smith. While Smith has been exceptional in the series finishing just one run shy of 500 for the series and boasting of an impressive average of 71.17, Warner has not been able to live up to the hype. 

While most people don't associate Warner to a be a very good Test player, his numbers point to the opposite. His career average of 47.42 is not just good but his performance against Pakistan just before the Indian tour was mighty impressive finishing the series with an average of 71.2. However, on the Indian shores, he has had a torrid time scoring just one half-century and finishing with an average of 24.12 - the third lowest in his career.

Whatever the outcome of this match and series, Warner will have to access how he approaches foreign tours because the emergence of Matt Renshaw can seriously put a big question mark on his Test future. 

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