The fourth and final Test match between India and Australia ended in a tie, as many cricket fans expected. The day began with Australia losing Matthew Kuhnemann in the first hour to Ravichandran Ashwin. But, India’s chances of an unexpected triumph were dashed by Travis Head and Marnus Labuschagne.
Head was on course for a century after a tenacious half-century when Axar Patel bowled him for his 50th Test wicket for India. Labuschagne stood strong on the other end as both captains shook hands to complete the fourth and final Test match of the series.
Let’s take a look at what the captains had to say at the end of the match –
Steve Smith (Australia)
Did end slowly. Was a pretty flat at the back end. The boys had a great time. The hospitality has been amazing. The crowd has been amazing. We started to play better as the series went on. The madness in one hour in Delhi cost us that game. The wicket here was too flat for us to force a result. The spinners bowled really well. Murphy and Kuhnemann bowled with composure. Lyon bowled his best in the first innings here, the best I have seen him bowl.
Rohit Sharma (India)
Was a fantastic series. Right from the word go, how exciting it was. Lot of the players are playing this for the first time. We do understand the importance of this series and the opposition. Lot of hard work has gone into this. At different times we have come up with answers. We knew how important it was to start the series well. The Delhi Test, I am very proud of. We were behind in the game. At Indore, we were put under pressure and lost the game. Different players put their hands up. Lot of guys took up the responsibility and bailed us out. I am quite satisfied. I know what kind of benchmark I have set for myself. I keep the personal milestones aside. We have got the result from what I wanted from the series. To get the result makes us very happy.
Player of the Match – Virat Kohli (India)
To be honest, the expectations I have from myself as a player is more to important to me. I felt I was batting well from the first innings at Nagpur. We focused on batting for long. I did that to an extent but not to the capability that I have done in the past. Was a little disappointed for that. Relief from the point of view that I could play the way I wanted to play. I was happy with my defence. I am not in a space now where I will go out and prove someone wrong. I also need to justify why I am there on the field. When I was 60 not out, we decided to play positively. But we lost Shreyas to injury and were a batter short. So, we decided to play time. They were good with the ball and placed some good fields. We got a bit of a lead and gave ourselves some sort of a chance.
