India vs Australia 3rd Test Day 4 Highlights: Rahul, Jadeja, tail-enders help India avoid follow-on after Cummins' four

However, India's No. 10 and 11 put on an unbeaten 39-run stand to stretch India's fight before Akash smashed a stunning boundary against Cummins to get the dressing room up on their feet as they avoided the follow-on. Stumps were taken shortly after, with bad light stopping the play at the Gabba. Australia will enter the final day with still a wicket o take before they can resume their second innings.

Rain stayed away for much of the first session but it wreaked havoc in the second, eventually forcing an early Tea with India 201/7, 45 runs away from avoiding a follow-on. Ravindra Jadeja and Nitish Kumar Reddy seemed to have shut the door on Australia after play resumed in the second session after a second rain delay. The pair looked untroubled against Mitchell Starc and Nathan Lyon but Australia captain Pat Cummins brought himself on and dismissed his SRH teammate Reddy. Jadeja now has Mohammed Siraj for company.

Jadeja's signature sword celebration has made its debut in this year's Border-Gavaskar Trophy, with the all-rounder powering India's lower order push in his very first innings of the tour. While rain largely stayed away in the first session of Day 4 of the third Test in Brisbane, it has hampered the second session, delaying its start and then forcing it to be interrupted after just about three overs were bowled. India's score read 180/6 in 51.5 overs at the time of the interruption and they require 65 runs to avoid the follow-on.

Jadeja and Nitish Kumar Reddy saw India through to Lunch in Brisbane at which point India were 79 runs away from avoiding a follow-on, with the score reading 167/6. KL Rahul's valiant fight ended on 84 off 139 balls as he fell to Nathan Lyon thanks to a screamer of a catch from Steve Smith. Rahul stood strong through multiple rain breaks over the course of Day 3 and a brief one in the first session today. He left the ball and stayed patient while the rest of his teammates fell around him until he finally found some kind of support at last in the form of Jadeja, who is batting for the first time in this series. The partnership between the pair was on 67 off 115 when Rahul fell. Their stand crossed fifty shortly after play resumed in the first session, with rain causing a break post drinks on Day 4 of the third Test between India and Australia at the Gabba.

Rahul has made the most of the stroke of luck he got early on Day 4 by cruising to a half-century in an innings where the rest of the Indian batters fell like nine pins in the fourth Test of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy. He was dropped off Australia captain Pat Cummins by Steve Smith very first ball of the day. Cummins eventually got his wicket by drawing a timid prod from India captain Rohit Sharma and getting him to edge it to the wicketkeeper having scored 10 off 27 balls. India thus lost half their side while being more than 370 runs behind.

Only 33.1 overs could be delivered on day three at the Gabba, which saw both sides frustrated with the stop-start nature of play due to rain. Nevertheless, 33.1 overs was enough for Australia to hammer home their advantage and put themselves in the driver’s seat and sway the odds of this match — and the Border-Gavaskar Trophy as a whole — strongly in their favour.

A disastrous start to the innings with bat leaves India gasping for air at 51-4 at stumps, with KL Rahul the only batter successful in making any sort of knock of substance as multiple wickets fell cheaply and loosely to Australia’s barrage with the new ball. Rahul is now joined by captain Rohit Sharma, who is in poor touch and desperate need of runs, the sort of batter you don’t want coming out with a Test match on the edge as he looks for confidence.

India remain 394 runs off Australia’s total, with the hosts’ mammoth first innings combined with cheap wickets meaning they are not only looking at a win, but the potential of a massive, spirit-sapping kind that India will suffer the hangover from heading into the rest of the series. Australia have the potential to run through India’s batting extremely cheaply, giving them the opportunity to enforce the follow on and still give themselves four or five sessions to try and bowl out India once again.

With Australia doing all the basics right and India doing quite the opposite, the results on page say as much about approach and mentality in this match as it does about any sort of gulf in quality. India would have had big hopes from the young core of their batting in Yashasvi Jaiswal, Shubman Gill, and Rishabh Pant, but the trio fell cheaply, only for a combined 14 runs. Jaiswal and Gill in particular will be disappointed by their short knocks: Jaiswal knocked a leg-stump half-volley straight to mid-wicket, while Gill flashed wildly at a ball wide outside off-stump to be caught at gully.

Things were made worse as Virat Kohli entered with a strong chance of rescuing the innings alongside KL Rahul, but fell into the same old trap as he was caught trying to drive expansively outside off stump. Josh Hazlewood’s setup worked perfectly as India’s talismanic batter tried to flirt with the delivery and only feathered it through to Alex Carey with the gloves behind the stumps. Indian fans will be extremely disappointed with the manner of these dismissals, more than anything else: with their backs against the wall, it was almost as if India’s main batters threw their wickets away, leaving tonnes of pressure on the lower middle order and the batters to come.

India haven’t been forced to follow on in a Test match since the tour of England in 2011, but with Australia hunting for wickets and still 194 runs to go and only 6 wickets in hand to avoid the follow-on, a lot will rest on the shoulders of senior batters in Rahul and Rohit. They will have some solace in the fact that there are capable batters to come with Ravindra Jadeja and Nitish Kumar Reddy, but will know that they will need to significantly eat into the total themselves rather than rely on the all-round duo.

For Australia, a world of possibilities opens up if they can dismiss one of the two batters early on day four. While KL Rahul has looked stable and safe at the crease despite being struck on his wrist early in the piece by Hazlewood, Rohit has looked extremely vulnerable against high pace in recent months, and that is a weakness that Australia can certainly exploit. With mass runs on the board, Australia can afford to be aggressive in their tactics and look for wickets through the day, with the flexibility to change their plans in case India do succeed in getting runs on the board.

India will know it’s not all doom and gloom. If Rohit can find the form of old, he and Rahul can score runs, with plenty of experience partnering each other in testing conditions in the past. With the threat of rain also looming over day four, the visitors wouldn’t mind a helping hand, with any route towards a win eradicated by this point in time. It’s a question of first avoiding the follow on, and then batting for time: after their horror display in the first half of this Test match, the Indian team will be more than happy to settle for a draw and go back to the drawing board ahead of the Boxing Day Test at the MCG.

Here are some pointers for India vs Australia 3rd Test Day 4:

- Jasprit Bumrah, Akash Deep's unbeaten 39-run stand helps India avoid follow-on at close of day's play.

- Pat Cummins dismisses Ravindra Jadeja for 77 at the start of the final hour of day's play.

- Mitchell Starc gets rid of Mohammed Siraj in first over after Tea

- Rain forced an early Tea, India were 201/7, need 45 runs to avoid follow-on

- Nitish Kumar Reddy and Jadeja put up a partnership of 67 in 115 balls before Pat Cummins dismissed the former

- Ravindra Jadeja scored his 22nd Test fifty in the first over of the second session

- Heavy rains delayed the start of the second session

- India 167/7 in 49 overs at Lunch, trail by 278 runs

- KL Rahul fell to Nathan Lyon thanks to a screamer from Steve Smith on 94 off 139

- Partnership between KL Rahul and Ravindra Jadeja crossed 50 in 73 balls

- Rain interrupted play after the first hour of play, India 105/5 in 30.5 overs

- KL Rahul got to his half-century in 85 balls

- India start the day on 51/4, trailing Australia by 394 runs

- KL Rahul was batting on 33 off 64 balls while Rohit Sharma was yet to get off the mark after facing six balls on Day 3

- Australia were all out for 445 runs, with Jasprit Bumrah returning figures of 6/76