Firstpost Cricast Episode 4: Cheteshwar Pujara's gritty ton, Jasprit Bumrah's fiery spell of bowling and more from visitors' 137-run victory in third Test

India took a 2-1 lead over Australia after winning the third Test match by 137 runs and retained the Border-Gavaskar Trophy on the final day of the Melbourne Test match. In this episode of FirstPost Cricast India's tour of Australia, we discuss how things went in the third Test.

The tourists won an important toss but it might not have made a lot of difference given Tim Paine admitted he would have looked to field first anyway. That was thanks to the grass on the first day's surface but India didn't let that affect the way they went about their business, making their highest score in an overseas Test innings in 2018.

Cheteshwar Pujara led the charge with a slow, but sure century while Virat Kohli chipped in with an 82 and Rohit Sharma made a half-century. India took nearly two days to score 443/7 but once they had the runs on the board, it was a matter of unleashing their best bowler of the year, Jasprit Bumrah. And how well did he end up bowling!

Bumrah finished his first year in Test cricket with his best bowling figures being a six-wicket haul in the first innings that broke the Aussie backs and sent them packing for a mere 151. While there was a threat of rain, Kohli opted not to enforce the follow-on, thereby affording his bowlers a break and batted on for nearly 38 overs in a bid to add 106 more runs to their lead.

Australia tried hard to resist through some of their top-order batsmen who got starts to their innings but other than Pat Cummins who came down the order, nobody got to a half-century in their chase of 399. Bumrah and Ravindra Jadeja grabbed three wickets apiece to bowl India to a rare win in Australia.

Bumrah was declared the player-of-the-match.