Indians pass the mettle test with a draw that’s as good as their Melbourne victory

India trailed in this third Test from the moment Tim Paine won the toss on a flat pitch. This draw was a feat to rank with their victory in Melbourne.

India’s Rishabh Pant bats during day five of the drawn third Test against Australia at the SCG. Picture: Getty Images

Astrological determinism? Yesterday was Rahul Dravid’s birthday. India faced a task at the Sydney Cricket Ground that called forth all the gifts of the batsman they called “The Wall”.

Between them they formed just such an obstacle: call them “The Barricade”, evoking their alert, improvised collective defiance.

India trailed in this Third Test from the moment Tim Paine won the toss on a flat pitch with a quick outfield then encountered a resurgent Steve Smith. They were missing their charismatic captain; they were absent key fast bowlers; they copped injuries, irritations, and, unhappily, abuse. Around them raged a debate about the venue of the next Test. It wasn’t only the home team they were keeping out, but the sense of gathering misfortune. This draw was a feat to rank with their victory in Melbourne.

They did it, paradoxically, by first pressing for an improbable win, chasing more than 400. In their first innings, India had been hemmed in by Australian accuracy and persistence, Cheteshwar Pujara eking out his half century from 176 deliveries, and others falling rather in step.

Here they had the brainstorm of swapping Rishabh Pant for Hanuma Vihari, breaking up the succession of right-handers and injecting a note of youthful brio.

Teams are strangely averse to this: Australia made an ersatz opener of Matthew Wade in Adelaide and Melbourne rather than have Marnus Labuschagne and Steve Smith move up a slot. But perhaps the Indians were persuaded by the extremity of their plight, chasing 400 to win with one batsman hors de combat. To achieve a different outcome required a different approach.

Pant, of course, had last been seen looking a dejected figure with his arm in a sling after sustaining the painful blow on the elbow from Mitchell Starc that had kept him off the field in Australia’s second innings — a little like a fallen cherub.

He had already had a poor first day with the gloves; he would have completed a sorry match yesterday had Tim Paine held him at the wicket on 3, but the edge was just too thick, the deviation too sharp.

From this moment, however, Pant made himself right at home. He hit Lyon out of the attack at Randwick End, then at the Paddington End, then at the Randwick End. He hit with the spin and against the spin; he hit with the field up and the field back. He cut and drove the pace bowlers too.

He is a fun cricketer, breezy and nonchalant; when you watch him, worldly cares slip away, save perhaps if you’re batting next, or the opposition captain. Third slip would have caught him on 32, but Paine had by then elected to save runs.

Pant also seemed to ginger Pujara, who was able to go about his quiet, methodical business without worrying too much about tempo, which in turn improved his own.

The pitch, meanwhile, continued in its enigmatic character, less reminiscent of last year, when Lyon took the wickets, than 20 years ago, when Stuart MacGill took seven wickets in the first innings and went wicketless in the second. Not even Starc’s heavy footfall made much of an impression on it.

There were flickers of reverse swing, dramas with the DRS. But after the roller’s effects wore off, uneven bounce posed batsmen’s greatest threat, particularly when the ball was short; in the game’s last 320 overs only four wickets fell to slow bowlers.

Five minutes before lunch, Pujara raised the century partnership with a deft flick through mid-wicket; having not made a Test half-century for two years, Pant carried on breezily towards an improbable Test century, until a wild shot on 97 spiralled to point with the second new ball just four deliveries away. Nothing so good has ended so badly since Huckleberry Finn.

A fine delivery from Josh Hazlewood accounted for Pujara, an untimely hamstring almost invalided Hanuma Vihari, and a fierce first over after tea from Pat Cummins nearly removed Ravi Ashwin. But by now, India had pivoted.

It was an old wisdom of Richie Benaud’s: commit totally to what you do. If you’re pressing for victory, go all out; if you want to draw, do not muck around with attacking gestures.

So Ashwin and Vihari tried nothing. Ashwin donned a chest guard like a knight a cuirass; Vihari limped occasionally between wickets like a gouty laird. Otherwise they set to defend over by over, ball by ball, minute by minute.

Ashwin, in delivering his media tidbits the night before from his little quarantined cubicle, had responded to the question of the team’s unity with a firm: “Absolutely.” The team, he insisted, had “come together”, and this last day was “an opportunity to show what sort of mettle we are made of”.

The Australians thoroughly tested that mettle. Paine even tried some sly psy ops, needling Ashwin about his Indian Premier League career, and his relations with the rest of his team. And Ashwin does sometimes seem a man apart: he speaks fluently, thoughtfully, sometimes trenchantly. Now he did so again, although, commendably, not when Paine dropped Vihari with 9.1 overs remaining: Australia’s captain did not have one of his better days.

Two years ago here, Australia escaped defeat thanks to rain; India relied on their own resources and determination. It was cricket not only in Dravid’s technical vein, but in his spirit. “I have failed at times,” said the great man, “but never stopped trying.”