World Test Championship final: Australia v India, day five – live | World Test Championship

43rd over: India 169-3 (Kohli 45, Rahane 24) Rahane opens the face and runs another single down to deep third. I might as well copy that sentence and have it on standby. Kohli is standing about half a foot outside of his crease to Boland. There’s an appeal for lbw but it’s sliding down leg.

42nd over: India 168-3 (Kohli 45, Rahane 23) It’s Cummins to Kohli but the prince of Indian cricket nudges a rising ball towards midwicket and gets down the other end with ease. A little soft as far as the Aussies are concerned. Rahane dabs a couple down to deep third and then keeps the strike with a single off the last ball. He’s perfected that shot over this Test. The pitch looks as flat as it’s been over the past five days. Simply hitting a good length won’t do for Australia.

41st over: India 164-3 (Kohli 44, Rahane 20) Scott Boland is on it straight away. Probing on a fourth stump line around a good length. Rahane is on the front foot and meeting the ball with the middle of his bat. He looks solid as he plays a mini game with the man at cover and sees out a maiden.

“Dan I presume Geoff is unavailable because he needs a day to recover from this morning’s episode of Bluey, simply titled Cricket, which is the best encapsulation of cricket’s role in growing up in Australia you will ever see, and is probably the television highlight of the year. It is utterly unmissable and everyone reading should seek it out at lunch if they have not already had the unalloyed pleasure.”

Geoff is saving all his best words for the final report so you’re stuck with me, Eamonn Maloney. But as the father of a two-year-old, I’ll absolutely be making a note of that.

What do you make of this from Shubman Gill? Just #Bantz or a line crossed from a pro player?

Ten minutes to go. Time enough to pick at the bones of yesterday’s controversial grab from Cam Green. Did the ball touch the ground? Well, yes. Does that mean it wasn’t a legitimate catch? Not exactly.

Confused? Not to worry. Geoff Lemon explains all:

While you wait I highly recommend this brilliant interview with Usman Khawaja, penned by Andy Bull. If you’re one of the seven cricket fans who didn’t already love the Australian batter, read this and get on board. He’s a proper gem.

If India pull this off it’d be one of the truly great Test performances.

To put their task in context, targets of 400 or more are rarely hauled in. In fact, only four teams have managed it in 252 attempts.

Don Bradman’s Australians notched 404-3 in the fourth Test of the 1948 Ashes thanks to Arthur Morris’ 182 and an unbeaten 173 from the Don.

28 years later, hundreds from Sanil Gavaskar and Gundappa Viswanath saw India reach 406-4 against the West Indies.

In 2003 the West Indies’ lower order got them over the line with 418-7 against an Australian attack of Glenn McGrath, Jason Gillespie and Brett Lee.

And the Aussies were on the wrong side of another historic chase when a century from AB de Villiers steered South Africa to 414-4 in Perth in 2008.

Preamble