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Robert Cianflone / Getty Images
India celebrates taking Tim Paine’s window as tourists approach a Boxing Day event victory over Australia.
Australia faces a great challenge to avoid defeat in the second cricket test against India at the Melbourne Cricket Ground after the home team suffered another batting collapse on Monday’s third day of play.
India’s performance represents a surprising change in form, following an embarrassing eight-wicket loss to Adelaide in the opening round of the four-game series.
Leading by just two races total, Australia will resume their second inning on Tuesday at 133-6. Cameron Green (17 not out) and Pat Cummins (15 not out) have added 34 of 112 balls for the seventh wicket and are holding grimly.
The second player, Green, landed a rear foot push midway to mark a limit at the end of the day to put Australia in front as the crowd of 24,995 found a rare reason to cheer.
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Losing 131 runs in the first inning after India scored 326, Australia lost the wickets of Joe Burns (4) and Marnus Labuschagne (28) before tea.
A nervous-looking Burns, who has scored 0 and 4 in Melbourne, was caught behind Umesh Yadav’s bowling alley.
Yadav limped off with a calf muscle injury midway through his fourth change-over, draining India’s bowling attack.
Labuschagne fell on 28, when he was caught slipping off spinner Ravi Ashwin’s bowling alley.
Asanka Brendon Ratnayake / AP
Ravindra Jadeja from India was finally eliminated by Mitchell Starc by 57.
Australia’s batting hopes initially rested on top test cricket batsman, Steve Smith. However, Smith has not reached double figures once in the series; Jasprit Bumrah kicked the former test captain in eight at 71-3.
Matthew Wade was right up there with spinner Ravindra Jadeja at 98-4, after scoring 40 of 137 balls in a gutsy performance. Head (17) played an ambitious shot to a wide ball from Mohammed Siraj, and was caught on the second slip with the total still at 98.
Australia suffered a mid-order collapse, losing three wickets for one run, including the firing of Tim Paine. The skipper was surprised from behind the Jadeja bowling alley (2-25), after a video review.
Cummins was brought down in the 11th by goalkeeper Rishabh Pant, although it was a very difficult opportunity.
While India enjoyed another day of dominance, tourists could have been in an even better position.
India was eliminated just before lunch for 326, losing its last three wickets for a race.
Substitute captain Ajinkya Rahane was unnecessarily eliminated for 112, when Jadeja went for a single at 49. Rahane and Jadeja (57) had led India to a lead in the first inning with their 121-run partnership for sixth field.
Rahane, 32, calmly absorbed the pressure applied by Australian bowlers on his patient, 223-ball hit, hitting 12 limits on his 112.
India will be without its best hitter and captain, Virat Kohli, for the remainder of the series, after he returned home to be with his wife at the birth of their first child. Kohli left with India trailing 1-0 after a loss in Adelaide, where the tourists were eliminated by a national record of 36 in their second inning.
