IND vs AUS Test 4: Why India Lost The Boxing Day Test Match

In this year's Boxing Day Test Match at the iconic MCG, Australia defeated India by 184 runs. Earlier in the morning, India entered the stadium with a desire to win the match. But, what happened by the evening, was similar to that of the last seven games. After this match India has lost five out of the last seven test matches.

Today, India's batting once again collapsed ; senior players Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, KL Rahul and Rishabh Pant didn't scored the runs even when this was a kind of most important day in the view of the World Test Championship final prospect.

The day started with Australia's batting,Nathan Lyon and Scott Boland both came back to bat today continuing important partnership from the last day; from there onwards, both batters could add only six more runs to the innings before Jasprit Bumrah dismissed Nathan Lyon. By the end of the innings, Australia took the lead of 339 runs.

India's Batting

To chase the target of 340 runs, Rohit Sharma and Yashasvi Jaiswal came to bat. While it was expected that both batters would give a strong start to the innings, Rohit Sharma got dismissed at his personal score of just nine runs in the 17th over. The team got the double blow when KL Rahul, who was in slightly good form, also got dismissed in the same over by Pat Cummins. 

Jaiswal and Virat Kohli tried to form a partnership, but Virat also couldn't continue for too long and was dismissed by Mitchell Starc in the slips, he tried to play a ball outside the off stump and gave a catch in the slips. Jaiswal and Rishabh Pant looked good, and both contributed to a partnership of 88 runs. In the 59th over, Pant got out again while playing a shot.

The moment they sealed it 🙌#WTC25 | #AUSvIND: https://t.co/66Tuk2oTvf pic.twitter.com/pxxjdCjMUT

— ICC (@ICC) December 30, 2024

One More Collapse

After Rishabh Pant's dismissal, India couldn't recover from that position, and the batters were getting dismissed every few overs. From 121-3, the team was all out at 155 rubs. Yashasvi Jaiswal scored the highest number of runs in the innings, 84; he also scored 82 runs in the first innings.

Senior Player's Form Concerns?

The biggest reason for the losses in this series, especially in this match, was the non-performance of the senior batters. Only Jaiswal and Nitish Reddy performed in this match, along with the support of Washington Sundar in the first innings. In five out of eight innings in the series, India couldn't score more than 200 runs. Only 3 Indian batters scored runs in the series, KL Rahul, Yashasvi Jaiswal and Nitish Reddy; the only performance from Virat Kohli was in the 2nd innings of the first test match. Major concern comes from Rohit Sharma's form who couldn't scored runs, he scored his last half century more than 14 innings ago.