Ahmedabad, Mar 13 (Agency) The resolute batting show by Travis Head and Marnus Labuschagne led to the fourth Test ending in a tame draw as India lifted Border-Gavaskar Trophy by defeating Australia 2-1 on Day 5 at Narendra Modi Stadium here on Monday. The dream for India to put a fairytale end to the match did not fructify as Australian batsmen were comfortable negotiating the troika of Indian spinners.The pitch played to the likings of batsmen, but on few occasions troubled them after the ball pitched on the rough and turned.Australia lost Matthew Kuhnemann in the morning, but Head and Labuchagne smashed India’s hope as they showed character. Steve Smith came in and dropped anchor, before Axar Patel dismissed Head for 90 runs.
As nothing concrete was happening in terms of a result, the two sides called it a truce 30 minutes before stumps. This was India’s 16th consecutive series win at home, and already they have qualified for the finals of the World Test Championship after New Zealand pulled off a last-ball win in Christchurch.Sri Lanka needed a clean sweep to make it to the WTC final, but it did not happen, thus paving the way for India-Australia title clash beginning June 7 at The Oval. Earlier, India’s hopes hiked early in the day after Ravichandran Ashwin scalped makeshift opener Kuhnemann, trapping him plumb in front of the wickets.
This forced Captain Rohit Sharma to chuck the ball to all the three spinners who occasionally extracted turns and beat Labuschagne and Head. They, however, survived the brunt, but did not lose any opportunity to punish loose balls offered by Ashwin.Ashwin was the star bowler, posing difficulties to Aussie batsmen and keeping India’s hunt alive to get wickets. Head survived an LBW review against Ashwin, but India did not lose the DRS either.In the post-lunch session, Head missed out on his maiden Test century in India by 10 runs and Labuschagne played himself into form with a sparkling fifty. Brief Scores: Australia 480 (Usman Khawaja 180, Cameron Green 114; R Ashwin 6-91) and 175/2 (Travis Head 90, Marnus Labuschagne 56*) drew with India 571 (Virat Kohli 186, Shubman Gill 128, Axar Patel 79; Todd Murphy 3-113) by 67 runs.