World Test Championship final 2023 LIVE: Australia v India day three

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Hello and welcome to day three

Evening Richie, evening all. Winter cricket. Name something better. I dare you.

Coming to you live from the Maroubra bureau with the footy on in the background, Australia have the ascendency at the Oval and lead by 318 runs with India five down for not enough in the first innings.

It’s a thoroughly deserved lead for Pat Cummins’ side and no two ways about it, the Test is well and truly on the line with India’s last recognised batters – Ajinkya Rahane 29*, Srikar Bharat 5* – at the crease this morning. We’ve got play due to begin at 7.30pm AEST and will be with you until the wee hours.

Analysis: Boland lives up to the pre-Ashes hype

Daniel Brettig: Australia’s loss of 7-108 was certainly more charitable for India than anything on day one, even if the Oval pitch had kept playing tricks throughout.

When they took the ball, Starc and Pat Cummins started out as though bearing gifts for India’s openers, dropping short or drifting full and wide for a flurry of early boundaries.

Boland was in no mood for such indulgence. For the championship cycle, no other bowler had been more economical, nor devastating. His long-awaited first spell with a Dukes ball in the English summer turned the day definitively towards Australia.

Over the past 18 months, Boland has struck fear into the hearts of opponents by asking constant questions of their ability to protect their stumps, pads and both edges of the bat. His lines and lengths whir unremittingly towards the off stump.

Rohit Sharma, who had absorbed Boland successfully enough on a spinners’ surface in Nagpur a few months back, looked immediately discomforted, and succumbed lbw in Cummins’ next over.

But his exit was something of an entree for Boland’s masterly unpicking of Shubman Gill. Subtly angling his position on the bowling crease while offering a wobble seam on a pitch now composed of patchwork cracking, Boland drew a series of forward defences.

Steadily he zoned in on off stump – were Boland an MLB pitcher, he would be a Greg Maddux, adept at “painting the corners” of the strike zone with just enough subtle variation to keep batters guessing.

Gill, having played the first three balls of the over, guessed it would be safe to let the fourth pass, as it pitched wider than the rest. Imagine his horror, then, when the wobble seam saw it snake back and clatter off and middle stumps. Had they been watching, Boland’s former quarry from England, West Indies and South Africa would doubtless have offered a knowing, wry grin at the sight.

Read the full story here.

Hello and welcome to day three

Evening Richie, evening all. Winter cricket. Name something better. I dare you.

Coming to you live from the Maroubra bureau with the footy on in the background, Australia have the ascendency at the Oval and lead by 318 runs with India five down for not enough in the first innings.

It’s a thoroughly deserved lead for Pat Cummins’ side and no two ways about it, the Test is well and truly on the line with India’s last recognised batters – Ajinkya Rahane 29*, Srikar Bharat 5* – at the crease this morning. We’ve got play due to begin at 7.30pm AEST and will be with you until the wee hours.

Poll: How many will India score in their first innings?

Day two recap: Aussie’s Ominous answer to Bazball

Australia’s bowlers have sent an emphatic warning to England about their ultra-attacking “Bazball” approach for the coming Ashes after demolishing India’s batting in the World Test Championship final at the Oval on Thursday.

India collapsed to 4-71 before recovering somewhat to be 5-151 at stumps on the second day in reply to Australia’s 469.

Nathan Lyon gets in on the action by dismissing Ravindra Jadeja.Credit: Getty Images

Australia’s innings was built around a 285-run partnership between Steve Smith (121) and Travis Head (163). Smith resumed on 95 and brought up his 31st Test century flicking successive boundaries off the first over of the day.

He now averages 102 at the Oval with three centuries in four innings and his overall career average is back above 60 in rarefied air.

Smith questioned how England could succeed with their “Bazball” approach in conditions like those offered up at the Oval.

“I think it will be difficult on this kind of wicket that’s up and down and seaming around,” he said. “It’s not easy to defend, let alone come out and swing.

“I’m intrigued to see how it goes against our bowlers. I’ve said that all along. They’ve obviously done well against some other attacks, but they haven’t come up against us yet, so we’ll see.

“It’s obviously been exciting to watch. I must say I’ve enjoyed watching the way they’ve played and the way they’ve turned things around in the last 12 months or so, but we’ll wait and see how it comes off against us.”

Read Malcolm Conn’s full match report here.

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