20:03

Good morning! Sure enough, it is another stonking Perth morning, not a cloud to be found. Australia require five wickets to square the series leading into Boxing Day; India 175 further runs to gather to retain the Border-Gavaskar Trophy in straight sets.

The former is far more likely on the basis that this capricious pitch is only to get harder to bat on. In saying that, we made the exact same observation 24 hours ago only for it to play flat and true after it had been rolled yesterday morning.



The only other caveat I’d give Australia’s favouritism is that the last time I saw Rishabh Pant bat in a fourth innings chase on the final day he made his maiden Test ton in about 90-odd balls at The Oval to finish their series against England. The kid is special.



The moment of the day, and probably the Test, was when Nathan Lyon found Virat Kohli’s edge as soon as he was introduced yesterday. There are some wonderful photos taken by Ryan Pierse from Getty showing the Indian skipper’s head bowed and eyes shut as the Australians went bananas - and rightly so.

The sledge that followed from Tim Paine to Murali Vijay after his opposite number’s dismissal (“I know he’s your captain but you can’t seriously like him as a good bloke”) has made headlines around the world, and turned my twitter feed into an utter sewer.

Righto, so it is all ahead of us. Is there another twist left in this contest? Based on the evidence of the first nine days of this series, there must be a decent chance of one. As you can see, we have the extended build-up on the OBO today, so there is plenty of time for you to drop me a line in the usual way. Or join the twitter mess. I’m all ears.

