When the fourth Australia-India Test at Melbourne finished with an hour to go on the final day, those who love the long game were sated. The experience was hearty and nutritious, like working your way through a large slice of dense and worthy rye bread. The first two days of the fifth Test here, by contrast, have been a pure sugar rush. Eleven wickets on day one were followed by 15 on day two, as the match careered towards a conclusion though a winner remains unclear.
India all out 185 was the first-day story, but somehow that turned into a four-run lead. Reading that sentence could only leave the assumption that Jasprit Bumrah must have made that happen, but as it turned out that was only true of the first 20%. It was Bumrah who made Usman Khawaja nick behind on the first evening, a wicket on the very last ball of the last over and it was Bumrah the next morning who drew the faintest forensically detected edge from India’s roadblock in Melbourne, Marnus Labuschagne.
