Australia captain Tim Paine was relieved yesterday after his team beat India by 146 runs in Perth to level the series with their first Test win since the ball-tampering “sandpapergate” scandal.
Set 287 to win, India resumed at 115-5 on the final day and never threatened to pull off a miraculous victory, losing their last five wickets for just 21 runs.
India were dismissed for 140, with spinner Nathan Lyon claiming 3-39 to finish with eight wickets for the match and guide the home team to a drought-breaking success, their first in seven Tests and nearly 10 months.
Paine said the overwhelming emotion was relief at finally being able to put a dark period in Australian cricket behind them.
“I’m relieved personally,” he said. “It’s been hard work — the first two Tests of this series have been really tough.”
“We’ve got some inexperienced players in terms of Test matches played, to get a win like that against the best Test team in the world is going to give them a huge boost of confidence,” he added.
India’s captian Virat Kohli defended his side’s decision to play four fast bowlers instead of picking Ravindra Jadeja to replace injured spinner Ravi Ashwin.
Despite the lively and at times unpredictable wicket, Kohli said India were confident they could chase down the target, but paid credit to the Australia bowlers.
“We had the belief we could do it,” he said. “They were more relentless and got the balls in the right areas for long enough.”
Both captains played down the on-field banter during the match, saying it never crossed the line of what was acceptable.
The series now heads to Melbourne, with the Boxing Day Test starting on Wednesday next week and India looking to regroup as they seek to win their first-ever Test series in Australia.
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