Melbourne: Australia defeated India by 184 runs on the 5th day of the Boxing Day Test to take a 2-1 lead in the series.
On the fifth day of the fourth Test of the 5-Test match Border Gavaskar Trophy series, the Indian team was bundled out for 155 runs in response to a target of 340 runs, with 9 Indian players unable to reach double figures.
India’s Yashasvi Jaiswal was dismissed for 84 and Rishabh Pant for 30 runs. For the Kangaroos, captain Pat Cummins and Scott Boland took 3 wickets each, while spinner Nathan Loin took 2 wickets.
Apart from them, Mitchell Starc and Travis Head got one wicket each, the Australian bowlers fell the last seven wickets of India for just 34 runs, India was 121 for 3.
Australian captain Pat Cummins was adjudged the man of the match for taking 3 wickets in both innings.
With the victory, the Kangaroos took a two-one lead in the 5-Test Border-Gavaskar Trophy series.
The defeat means that India’s hopes of reaching the final of the World Test Championship are almost over, but by leveling the series with a victory in Sydney, they can retain the Border-Gavaskar Trophy.
Australia will have to win or draw the Sydney Test to qualify for the final, India has only one in the World Test Championship while Australia has 3 matches left,
Australia is second on the points table and India is third.
Australia will clinch a 3-1 series win in the final Test to set up a Test Championship final with South Africa, while the Proteas have already qualified for the final by defeating Pakistan.
The ongoing fourth Test between India and Australia set a new attendance record, with more than 350,700 fans flocking to the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG) over five days.
According to a report by the leading cricket website Cricinfo, the previous record was 350,534 cricket fans in 1937.
Cricket Australia confirmed that 51,371 had turned up for the first session on the fifth day of the match, with more expected.
The huge attendance means that the 2024 MCG Boxing Day Test was watched by more people than the match that Sir Donald Bradman led Australia to play against England at the ground in January 1937, which lasted for 6 days.
The attendance for this Test match has been absolutely phenomenal, with daily attendances exceeding 87,000, 85,000, 83,000, 43,000 and 51,000 respectively.
The record number of fans at the MCG came to watch the India-Pakistan match in the 2022 T20 World Cup, with 90,293 fans watching this match, while 82,507 people turned up to watch the India-Zimbabwe match.
