India captain Anil Kumble ended his accomplished Test career yesterday with his side leading Australia 1-0 in the series after the third Test ended in a draw.
Legspinner Kumble, who suffered a serious injury to his left hand while fielding on Friday, announced his retirement with his side poised to record a series win over the world’s top-ranked Test team.
Australia entered the final day nurturing hopes of being able to push for a victory to square the series, but the visitors’ chances were ended with some stubborn batting by man-of-the-match VVS Laxman.
PHOTO: AP
India declared their second innings at 208-5 early in the final session, setting Australia a nominal target of 245 from 23 overs.
After a half-hour at the crease, Australia on 31-0 and a draw inevitable, stumps were called, meaning the series will be decided in the fourth and final Test in Nagpur from Thursday. Australia currently holds the Border-Gavaskar Trophy and must win the game to retain it.
Kumble required 11 stitches after splitting the webbing in his left hand attempting a catch on Friday and, knowing he could not recover in time for the deciding Test, he chose to retire after a career in which he 619 Test wickets. Kumble had also missed the second Test of the series with a shoulder injury.
“It would have been ideal if we had won this Test, but the body was certainly telling me, asking me questions every day,” Kumble said.”
“It was not easy to keep bowling the way I had been for the past 18 years. The injury that I had on the third day helped me in making this decision,” he said.
India started the final day needing a couple of strong partnerships to end any hope of an Australian fightback and they achieved it through Laxman (59 not out), who had help from Sachin Tendulkar (47) and Sourav Ganguly (32 not out).
“It didn’t seem like they had a lot of purpose in their batting today,” Australia skipper Ricky Ponting said. “Coming to the ground this morning, there was a chance a really good game could have been set up.”
“We had to try to push hard this morning and although we tried really hard, we weren’t able to get the results to push ahead for a victory,” he said.
Laxman played some delightful drives and hit seven fours during his 130-ball knock, having registered his fifty with a cover drive for four off Michael Clarke before tea.
Tendulkar was closing on his second half-century of the match when he played back to Cameron White and edged to Matthew Hayden at first slip.
The dismissal reduced India to 145-5 in the middle session before Laxman, who scored 200 not out in the first innings, and Ganguly ensured there was no further loss before the declaration.
India employed a cautious approach to avoid the possibility of a batting collapse in the morning, but still lost Gautam Gambhir and Rahul Dravid.
The breakthroughs gave the visitors some hope of running through the Indian order and staging a fifth-day run chase, but the Tendulkar-Laxman stand used up valuable time.
India resumed the final day at 43-2 — with a lead of 79 — and began watchfully, adding just 28 runs in the first hour.
Brett Lee (2-48) secured the first breakthrough after 30 minutes when he bowled Dravid (11) with a full inswinger that the Indian edged onto his stumps.
Opener Gambhir, who followed his first-innings 206 with 36, was untroubled until he missed a ball angled into him from Mitchell Johnson and was given out lbw despite the ball appearing to be heading down the legside.
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