Australia vs India – 4th Test – Live Score and Update
Ricky Ponting and Michael Clarke have scored unbeaten centuries to punish India in the 4th and final Test of the Border-Gavaskar trophy, played at Adelaide Oval, January 24, 2012.
Both shared an unbroken stand of 200 to place their team in a dominating position after the Men In Blue picked up three wickets in the first session of the day.
The wretched showing on the tour seemed no stopping for the Indian contingent, failing to establish any sort of solidity – losing the spark following the early good work.
Ravichandran Ashwin came into the side after missing the Perth clash and was key to the team’s impressive showing in the initial two hours of play, striking twice to get rid of under fire Shaun Marsh and opener, Ed Cowan after Zaheer Khan used his experience
to account for David Warner as the hosts went into lunch at 98 for 3.
However, the Aussie regrouped soon after with Ponting and Clarke anchoring the innings with limited difficulty. Both collected easy runs and batted with total command on a pitch, which offered plenty of assistance to the batters.
Punter kept his revolution on track, batting assuredly and picking effortless boundaries. His technique, movement all looked perfect as he marched to his fifty – consequently also reaching 13000 Test runs.
His partnership with Clarke also flourished as the Aussie skipper also maintained his fantastic batting run to complete another half-century. Both added 130 in the second session, going comfortably at 4 runs per over.
Tea internal came and went as stand in skipper, Virender Sehwag tried his hand with the ball. However, recommencement saw the Aussies piling on more runs (even at a brisker rate), as Punter reached to his ton with a swing to the point boundary.
By now, Clarke too had come close to the triple digit mark and showed little nerves in his nineties, collecting back to back fours to raise his bat. Pup before the match commented that reverse swing could play a huge part but the pair had demoralized their
opponents to such extent that the movement posed little difficulty.
The 200-run stand was also completed – their second of the series, as the Aussie went past 300 to put further pressure on the opposition.