Australia batter Marnus Labuschagne believes that India’s historic fourth-innings chase on the Gabba in 2021 holds little relevance as they head into the ultimate day of a gripping Boxing Day Test in Melbourne. In that memorable victory in Brisbane, India efficiently chased down 328 to clinch the sequence. They might want to replicate an analogous effort on the MCG on Monday to retain the Border-Gavaskar Trophy and strengthen their possibilities of reaching the ICC World Test Championship Final, as Australia completed Day 4 at 228/9, holding a lead of 333 runs.
Despite a lot of India’s key gamers from the 2021 triumph nonetheless being current, Labuschagne believes the situations in Melbourne and the present sequence context are vastly completely different from these in Brisbane three years in the past.
“That wicket at the Gabba was flat,” Labuschagne recalled after his innings of 70 on the MCG on Sunday, as quoted by the ICC.
“There were some cracks appearing there for memory, but the wicket itself was really nice,” he mentioned.
“I remember that wicket because I think that it (the match) almost started a day early or two days early and it was like a Day 2 wicket on Day 1 and it was quite firm,” he added.
“There was a little bit of bounce there as you do get in Brisbane, but it was a nice wicket,” he famous.
“And we were also in that position in that Test where we had to win the series, so we had to try and set a total,” he mentioned.
“Ideally we would have liked to set India more in that game and probably bowl a few less overs, but because we had to win we had to risk it a little bit more,” he famous.
With Australia but to be dismissed of their second innings, the precise goal India might want to chase stays unsure. Tailenders Nathan Lyon and Scott Boland annoyed the guests by including an unbeaten 51-run stand within the ultimate session, pushing Australia’s lead previous 300.
Labuschagne additionally revealed that Australia had thought of declaring in the course of the ultimate session, however an excellent spell from Jasprit Bumrah, which noticed the Aussies lose 4 wickets in fast succession, compelled them to desert that plan.
“The perfect outcome for us would have probably looked like having a bowl tonight and putting them under pressure,” Labuschagne mentioned, as quoted by ICC.
“But the way the wicket played and the way India bowled and came out and put us under pressure in that first 40 to 50 overs, that wasn’t an option for us,” he mentioned.
“It became, let’s get as many runs as we can and that’s obviously creeping into a nice total now, but there was a time there where it could have been 250 or 270 (run lead) or maybe even less there for a bit,” he added.
“So I think we navigated that really well and the lower-order deserve a lot of credit, for how they managed that last part,” he famous.
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