Australia overcame the early loss of Usman Khawaja to comfortably reach the 76 run target and give themselves a chance of sharing the series. In doing so they confirmed their place in the World Test Championship Final to take place at The Oval in June.An unbroken second wicket partnership saw them home in 18.5 overs. With thirty wickets having fallen in the first two days at the Holkar Stadium in Indore there were still some nerves around even though Australia’s victory target was only 76 runs.

India knew that they would have to create history if they were to come up with an extraordinary win as the smallest victory target that has ever been defended in Tests is 85 back in 1882 when Australia overcame England.

Ravi Ashwin opened the bowling at the Pavilion End and his first delivery ripped past Usman Khawaja’s outside edge. His second kissed it and was caught behind by Srikar Bharat. As if in shock, Khawaja reviewed the decision, but there was no reprieve from his second ball duck.

India’s use of the review throughout the Test has been awful. With an excited crowd in the stands and an even more animated one around the bat it was no surprise that they wasted their first. Even so, it really was a shocker.

Marnus Labuschagne was left grinning when a delivery from Ashwin was shown to have brushed his pad before being held by Virat Kohli at leg slip with neither bat nor gloves anywhere near the ball.

The battle was heating up between the pair with Ashwin trying to increase the tempo by feigning to come off a shorter run up while Labuschagne kept walking away from his crease to slow the game down. It required a quick intervention from both umpires to get the game moving steadily again.

At the end of the tenth over Australia were 1-13 having been under seemingly increasing pressure. The tempo of the whole innings then changed with the change of ball and somehow this seemed to upset the Indians and, in particular, Ashwin. Speaking afterwards, Travis Head said that, as a batter, he hates a change in ball but it seemed to be Ashwin unable to cope.He started over pitching and questioned the condition of the new ball after the third delivery. Head then smashed the fifth for a straight six and all of the tension of the first forty-five minutes began to be relieved with thirteen taken off the over.Head seemed to sense the Indian frustration and took the game to them. This, in turn, relaxed Labuschagne and the pair started hitting boundaries with ease so that by the time the drinks break came the result looked a formality with 43 runs having come off the previous five overs.So it proved. There reached a point where it was clear that India knew that they were chasing a lost cause and it was just a matter of Australia getting over the line.

When Labuschagne hit the final boundary to take his score to 28, Head was on 49 and just missed out on his second half-century on the sub-continent. He’d been left out of the first Test and regained his place for the second when he moved up to opener in the second innings after David Warner was injured. This time he led the charge that saw Australia come up with a rare win in India, only their second in their last five series in the country.