Lyon, Head, Labuschagne & Khawaja shine for the Aussies in the third test

It was a powerful show from Aussie opener Travis Head and the World Number one batter Marnus Labuschagne that helped the Visitors to beat the Hosts by 9 wickets in the third Test in Indore. Chasing 76 on Day 3, the Stand-in skipper Smith's side started on a dreadful note losing the left-handed opener Khawaja for 0 after facing two balls from Ashwin.

However, Head and Labuschagne kept things slow initially before going all blaze against India's spin duo Ashwin and Jadeja. The left-handed batter Head scored an unbeaten 49 off 53 balls that included 6 fours and 1 six in his blistering innings.

The 28-year-old batter Labuschagne scored 28*, which also included six fours. With this win the Visitors draw first blood in the ongoing edition of the BGT four-match test series, having lost the opening two fixtures in Nagpur and Delhi and now they reduced the trail to 1-2. The fourth and final Test will be played in Ahmedabad, which starts on March 9.

The veteran Aussie spinner Nathan Lyon ruled the bowling charts, after scalping 8 wickets in the second innings and claiming his 23rd test fifer, notably his 9th test fifer against India. Lyon was also well supported by Todd Murphy and Mitchell Starc also picked a wicket each.

Meanwhile, For the Hosts, Pujara emerged as the standout batter from the Indian camp, scoring a resilient 59 off 142 balls that included 5 fours and 1 six in his gutsy innings before the stand-in skipper Smith plucked a blinder at leg slips to bring an end to his stay in the middle. Earlier, Usman Khawaja too had grabbed a blinder at short mid-wicket in the innings to dismiss Iyer for 26 off 27 balls who was smashing the ball well. India's gun bowler Umesh Yadav breathed fire in the opening session as he scalped three wickets to help India wrap the Visitors' first innings for 197.

The Aussies, however, took a healthy lead of 88 runs on this red soil which produced a lot of help for the spinners. The second day started with Green and Handscomb providing AUS with an ideal start. Both added 30 runs to the overnight total of 156/4 before Ashwin removed Handscomb for 19. Rohit Sharma then introduced Umesh, who dismissed Green (21) in his first over and went to remove Starc with a beauty in the next. For the Hosts, Jadeja with the most (4), and Umesh and Ashwin both got (3) wickets each in the second innings. 

Batting first after winning the toss, IND's first innings was reduced to 109 runs. In response, AUS' first innings were reduced to 197 runs today. The Hosts scored 163 runs in the second innings and set a target of 76 runs in front of Australia.

Even in the second innings, India had a bad start as the opener Shubman Gill was clean-bowled by Lyon after scoring five runs. The skipper of the side Rohit Sharma also became the victim of Lyon and got LBW on 12 runs. After this Virat Kohli also could not do anything special and got out LBW on the ball of Kuhnemann after scoring 13 off 26 balls. The number one all-rounder in the test Ravindra Jadeja was also trapped by Lyon on 07. After this Cheteshwar Pujara along with Shreyas Iyer tried to handle the innings and took India's lead to 27, both shared a 35-run partnership before Iyer lost his wicket by giving a catch to Khawaja off Starc on 26 off 27 balls that included 3 fours and 2 sixes in his blistering knock.

Shortly after that, Nathan Lyon clean-bowled KS Bharat and gave India the sixth blow on 03. Meanwhile, Pujara scored his 35th half-century in his Test career and this was his 16th half-century against Australia. Pujara was dismissed for a fighting knock of 59 off 142 balls. In his innings, he hit five fours and a six. Lyon then wrapped up India's innings after taking the wickets of Umesh and Siraj within no time.