When Australia and India walk out in the middle of the Gabba, Brisbane, eyes will be on India’s amazing run of form lately, which helped them beat the home side in Melbourne and then earn a well-fought draw in Sydney, all while losing players to injury at an alarming rate.
The team showed amazing resilience in the ongoing Gabba Test as well, making 336 runs in their first innings, thanks to 62 from debutant Washington Sundar and 67 from Shardul Thakur, as they added 123 runs for the seventh wicket for India and frustrated the Australian bowling to no ends.
But former Australia captain Ricky Ponting thinks that day 5 at Gabba might be the day when India’s fightback and resilience end and he backed the Australian bowlers to defend the fort by keeping India from getting the 324 runs it needs to win the Brisbane Test.
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"India's resilience has got to give up at some stage. They can't keep doing what they've been doing, being so resilient, and tomorrow it might be that day. The last day of the series, potentially playing for another draw, I've just got a feeling that something's got to give. And Australia on the other hand, they know they have to go flat out and give everything to win the series,” Ponting told cricket.com.au.
"I think a drawn series will be worse than the loss a couple of years ago. That's the way I look at it, considering how hard India has found it going through 20 players in a series, (Australia) having Warner back for the last couple of games, Smith back for all them that they didn't have last time around.
A draw would not only feel like a loss to them but be a worse result than the last series,” he added.
Ponting urged captain Paine to use his pacers in short spells giving them the energy to bounce out the Indian batsmen.
"I think it will be (Josh) Hazlewood and (Pat) Cummins. I think the up-and-down bounce will suit them. Starc, I think probably won't get much of an opportunity with the newer ball. I think they'll use him in short, sharp spells to run and bowl fast and unsettle like he did yesterday afternoon. The majority of the wickets will go to the two big, tall right-armers,” Ponting predicted.
Ponting said that if India needs to make a game out of that chase on day 5, they need to survive the first hour’s play without taking on much damage.
"The first hour of play will be the most important for them. Not if they don't lose wickets, they have to actually get away and start scoring reasonably quickly. Ninety-eight overs tomorrow, 324 still to get so they're going to have to score at a rate that they haven't scored in the series so far,” he said.
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"Rohit and Gill are every chance to get them off to a good start. If they do that I think they might use Rishabh Pant up the order again, as they did in Sydney because if it does get down to a run chase and (India are) behind the (required) run rate early on I can't see how Pujara is going to be the guy to drag them back into the chase.
It's going to be intriguing to me to see if they come out with the thought of trying to win the game or if they're happy to try and defend and sit on it and block the day out and not even entertain going for the runs. That story will be told pretty early on in the day tomorrow,” Ponting signed off.
(cricket.com.au inputs)
