Australia defeated India in the third Test at Indore by nine wickets to guarantee their spot in the World Test Championship championship match in June.
Travis Head scored an immaculate 49 runs, while Marnus Labuschagne added an unbeaten 28 as the tourists clinched the game on day three before lunch.
Usman Khawaja was caught behind the second ball, but Head and Labuschagne shared a partnership of 78, guiding them home.
India failed to keep the visitors under pressure after getting the wicket early on. Nathan Lyon claimed eight wickets on Thursday as Australia bowled India out for 163 runs, needing to chase down a 76-run mark.
Cheteshwar Pujara led the way with 59 runs, but Lyon’s 8 for 64 figures overshadowed the accomplishment. Lyon had taken three wickets in India’s opening inning.
India will be guaranteed a spot if they defeat Australia in the series’ fourth and final Test, which begins on March 9 in Ahmedabad.
However, a draw or defeat, along with Sri Lanka beating New Zealand 2-0 in their two-Test series, which begins on March 8 at 22:00 GMT, would see Sri Lanka qualify instead.
The World Test Championship final will be held between June 7 and 11, just a week before Australia takes on England in the first Ashes Test at Edgbaston.
India has a 2-1 advantage in the four-Test series following two decisive victories.
Australian Captain Steve Smith: “It was a complete performance”
“It was a complete performance in the end,” said Steve Smith, who was captaining Australia with Pat Cummins in Australia with his ill mother.
“We’re really proud to clinch a spot in the final but for us it is just about playing really good cricket.
“The way we’ve fought back here and played our style for longer periods of time than we did in the first two Tests, hopefully we can put up a similar performance and finish the series really well.”
Indian Captain Rohit Sharma: “We didn’t bat well”
“When you lose a Test match, there’s a lot of things that didn’t go our way. To start with, we didn’t bat well in the first innings. We understand how important it is to put runs on the board in the first innings. And obviously when they got a 80-90 run lead, we needed to put in a big performance with the bat but we couldn’t do that, taking just a 75-run lead.”
“We need to understand that we need to improve as a team. When you are playing on challenging pitches you have to bowl. We allowed their bowlers to bowl in one spot. Not to take any credit away from their bowlers, Nathan Lyon especially. We had to try and be brave, which I think we were not. We can take a lot of credit as well, how we batted in the first two games.”
Nathan Lyon – Man of the Match
“It’s been a pretty remarkable series. But to come out here and put out a good team performance it was pretty special. I don’t have all the skills and all the tricks in the trade but the one thing I have is the belief in my stock ball. And I think if you have that, you can get success. I don’t think I’ve mastered it. I’ve been lucky enough to challenge against some of the best players to play the game, the likes of Virat and Pujji and the rest of the guys. I just like challenging myself.”
Full Scorecard: Ind vs Aus
India 1st Innings
| BATTING | R | B | M | 4s | 6s | SR | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rohit Sharma (c) | st †Carey b Kuhnemann | 12 | 23 | 27 | 3 | 0 | 52.17 |
| Shubman Gill | c Smith b Kuhnemann | 21 | 18 | 37 | 3 | 0 | 116.66 |
| Cheteshwar Pujara | b Lyon | 1 | 4 | 15 | 0 | 0 | 25.00 |
| Virat Kohli | lbw b Murphy | 22 | 52 | 64 | 2 | 0 | 42.30 |
| Ravindra Jadeja | c Kuhnemann b Lyon | 4 | 9 | 12 | 0 | 0 | 44.44 |
| Shreyas Iyer | b Kuhnemann | 0 | 2 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0.00 |
| Srikar Bharat † | lbw b Lyon | 17 | 30 | 53 | 1 | 1 | 56.66 |
| Axar Patel | not out | 12 | 33 | 57 | 1 | 0 | 36.36 |
| Ravichandran Ashwin | c †Carey b Kuhnemann | 3 | 12 | 22 | 0 | 0 | 25.00 |
| Umesh Yadav | lbw b Kuhnemann | 17 | 13 | 17 | 1 | 2 | 130.76 |
| Mohammed Siraj | run out (Head/Lyon) | 0 | 4 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0.00 |
| Extras | 0 | ||||||
| TOTAL | 33.2 Ov (RR: 3.27) | 109 | |||||
| Fall of wickets: 1-27 (Rohit Sharma, 5.6 ov), 2-34 (Shubman Gill, 7.2 ov), 3-36 (Cheteshwar Pujara, 8.2 ov), 4-44 (Ravindra Jadeja, 10.5 ov), 5-45 (Shreyas Iyer, 11.2 ov), 6-70 (Virat Kohli, 21.4 ov), 7-82 (Srikar Bharat, 24.5 ov), 8-88 (Ravichandran Ashwin, 28.3 ov), 9-108 (Umesh Yadav, 32.2 ov), 10-109 (Mohammed Siraj, 33.2 ov) • DRS |
| BOWLING | O | M | R | W | ECON | WD | NB |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mitchell Starc | 5 | 0 | 21 | 0 | 4.20 | 0 | 0 |
| Cameron Green | 2 | 0 | 14 | 0 | 7.00 | 0 | 0 |
| Matthew Kuhnemann | 9 | 2 | 16 | 5 | 1.77 | 0 | 0 |
| Nathan Lyon | 11.2 | 2 | 35 | 3 | 3.08 | 0 | 0 |
| Todd Murphy | 6 | 1 | 23 | 1 | 3.83 | 0 | 0 |
Australia 1st Innings
| BATTING | R | B | M | 4s | 6s | SR | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Travis Head | lbw b Jadeja | 9 | 6 | 8 | 1 | 0 | 150.00 |
| Usman Khawaja | c Shubman Gill b Jadeja | 60 | 147 | 162 | 4 | 0 | 40.81 |
| Marnus Labuschagne | b Jadeja | 31 | 91 | 118 | 1 | 0 | 34.06 |
| Steven Smith (c) | c †Bharat b Jadeja | 26 | 38 | 60 | 4 | 0 | 68.42 |
| Peter Handscomb | c Iyer b Ashwin | 19 | 98 | 111 | 1 | 0 | 19.38 |
| Cameron Green | lbw b Yadav | 21 | 57 | 94 | 2 | 0 | 36.84 |
| Alex Carey † | lbw b Ashwin | 3 | 7 | 20 | 0 | 0 | 42.85 |
| Mitchell Starc | b Yadav | 1 | 3 | 9 | 0 | 0 | 33.33 |
| Nathan Lyon | b Ashwin | 5 | 8 | 16 | 1 | 0 | 62.50 |
| Todd Murphy | b Yadav | 0 | 6 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 0.00 |
| Matthew Kuhnemann | not out | 0 | 3 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0.00 |
| Extras | (b 9, lb 8, nb 5) | 22 | |||||
| TOTAL | 76.3 Ov (RR: 2.57) | 197 | |||||
| Fall of wickets: 1-12 (Travis Head, 1.4 ov), 2-108 (Marnus Labuschagne, 34.3 ov), 3-125 (Usman Khawaja, 42.3 ov), 4-146 (Steven Smith, 48.5 ov), 5-186 (Peter Handscomb, 70.6 ov), 6-188 (Cameron Green, 71.6 ov), 7-192 (Mitchell Starc, 73.3 ov), 8-196 (Alex Carey, 74.1 ov), 9-197 (Todd Murphy, 75.3 ov), 10-197 (Nathan Lyon, 76.3 ov) • DRS |
| BOWLING | O | M | R | W | ECON | WD | NB |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ravichandran Ashwin | 20.3 | 4 | 44 | 3 | 2.14 | 0 | 0 |
| Ravindra Jadeja | 32 | 8 | 78 | 4 | 2.43 | 0 | 3 |
| Axar Patel | 13 | 1 | 33 | 0 | 2.53 | 0 | 0 |
| Umesh Yadav | 5 | 0 | 12 | 3 | 2.40 | 0 | 0 |
| Mohammed Siraj | 6 | 1 | 13 | 0 | 2.16 | 0 | 2 |
India 2nd Innings
| BATTING | R | B | M | 4s | 6s | SR | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rohit Sharma (c) | lbw b Lyon | 12 | 33 | 61 | 0 | 0 | 36.36 |
| Shubman Gill | b Lyon | 5 | 15 | 22 | 0 | 0 | 33.33 |
| Cheteshwar Pujara | c Smith b Lyon | 59 | 142 | 227 | 5 | 1 | 41.54 |
| Virat Kohli | lbw b Kuhnemann | 13 | 26 | 35 | 2 | 0 | 50.00 |
| Ravindra Jadeja | lbw b Lyon | 7 | 36 | 35 | 0 | 0 | 19.44 |
| Shreyas Iyer | c Khawaja b Starc | 26 | 27 | 31 | 3 | 2 | 96.29 |
| Srikar Bharat † | b Lyon | 3 | 8 | 17 | 0 | 0 | 37.50 |
| Ravichandran Ashwin | lbw b Lyon | 16 | 28 | 35 | 2 | 0 | 57.14 |
| Axar Patel | not out | 15 | 39 | 64 | 0 | 1 | 38.46 |
| Umesh Yadav | c Green b Lyon | 0 | 2 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 0.00 |
| Mohammed Siraj | b Lyon | 0 | 7 | 27 | 0 | 0 | 0.00 |
| Extras | (b 3, lb 4) | 7 | |||||
| TOTAL | 60.3 Ov (RR: 2.69) | 163 | |||||
| Fall of wickets: 1-15 (Shubman Gill, 4.6 ov), 2-32 (Rohit Sharma, 14.4 ov), 3-54 (Virat Kohli, 22.4 ov), 4-78 (Ravindra Jadeja, 30.5 ov), 5-113 (Shreyas Iyer, 37.2 ov), 6-118 (Srikar Bharat, 40.1 ov), 7-140 (Ravichandran Ashwin, 48.1 ov), 8-155 (Cheteshwar Pujara, 56.3 ov), 9-155 (Umesh Yadav, 56.5 ov), 10-163 (Mohammed Siraj, 60.3 ov) • DRS |
| BOWLING | O | M | R | W | ECON | WD | NB |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mitchell Starc | 7 | 1 | 14 | 1 | 2.00 | 0 | 0 |
| Matthew Kuhnemann | 16 | 2 | 60 | 1 | 3.75 | 0 | 0 |
| Nathan Lyon | 23.3 | 1 | 64 | 8 | 2.72 | 0 | 0 |
| Todd Murphy | 14 | 6 | 18 | 0 | 1.28 | 0 | 0 |
Australia 2nd Innings (T: 76 runs)
| BATTING | R | B | M | 4s | 6s | SR | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Usman Khawaja | c †Bharat b Ashwin | 0 | 2 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0.00 |
| Travis Head | not out | 49 | 53 | 77 | 6 | 1 | 92.45 |
| Marnus Labuschagne | not out | 28 | 58 | 72 | 6 | 0 | 48.27 |
| Extras | (lb 1) | 1 | |||||
| TOTAL | 18.5 Ov (RR: 4.14) | 78/1 | |||||
| Did not bat: Steven Smith (c), Peter Handscomb, Cameron Green, Alex Carey †, Mitchell Starc, Nathan Lyon, Todd Murphy, Matthew Kuhnemann | |||||||
| Fall of wickets: 1-0 (Usman Khawaja, 0.2 ov) • DRS |
| BOWLING | O | M | R | W | ECON | WD | NB |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ravichandran Ashwin | 9.5 | 3 | 44 | 1 | 4.47 | 0 | 0 |
| Ravindra Jadeja | 7 | 1 | 23 | 0 | 3.28 | 0 | 0 |
| Umesh Yadav | 2 | 0 | 10 | 0 | 5.00 | 0 | 0 |
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