Australia v India, 2014-15

At Sydney, January 6-10, 2015. Drawn. Toss: Australia.
The highest-scoring four-Test series ended with a total of 5,870 runs, a fourth hundred each for captains Smith and Kohli - opposing each other for the first of what will surely be many occasions - and only the second draw at Sydney in 20 years. Declaring overnight, Smith challenged India to make 349 on the last day, a session more than he had offered them in Melbourne. But such thoughts as Kohli entertained of a chase ended when he was caught at slip just after tea, the first of four wickets for 16. After winning the toss, which gave his team the initiative throughout, Smith had to settle for the individual and series awards, following scores of 117 and 71. He emulated Jacques Kallis - at home to West Indies in 2003-04 - in scoring hundreds in each match of a four-Test series.

The Australians were back for the first time at the venue where five team members had been eyewitnesses to the fatal injury suffered by Phillip Hughes on November 25. It weighed heavily on them. Black armbands, as for the whole series, remained de rigueur. When Warner was 62 in the first session, he tucked one off his pads to long leg, made his ground at the other end, and bestowed a kiss on the grass where Hughes had fallen. When he reached a power-packed hundred, from 108 balls, he gave a long look skywards.

At the other end, Rogers - whose career had quite possibly been prolonged by the Hughes tragedy, and who had indicated this would be his last home Test - helped him put on their best Test partnership: 200, in under 45 overs, before both fell in quick succession. The score was then almost doubled by a lugubrious Watson and a bustling Smith, with Watson surviving a chance to Ashwin at first slip in the last over of the day, before being caught by the same fielder at deep midwicket on the second morning. By then, Australia's position was virtually unassailable, and Smith had completed his fourth first-innings century of the series. Shaun Marsh and Burns combined fluently on a soporific afternoon, against some humdrum bowling and out-cricket; Kohli, now the most experienced player in India's side, looked unimpressed. It was the first time Australia's top six had all reached 50 in the same innings.

The game was saved from languor by some hefty blows from Harris, a declaration, and the wicket of a weary Vijay, caught behind off Starc in the first over of India's response. Rahul, retained as partner for Vijay ahead of Shikhar Dhawan, despite an ignominious debut at the MCG, hung in through a challenging last session, in which Starc - standing in for Johnson, who had a sore hamstring - bowled a pacy spell, and Harris and Hazlewood probed away.

Early on the third morning, Rohit Sharma - given a chance at No. 3, with Cheteshwar Pujara dropped - dragged a premeditated sweep on to his stumps. Rahul enjoyed two letoffs, nine overs apart: on 42 he charged down the pitch from the non-striker's end in search of a bye, and fell over trying to recapture his ground, but Hazlewood threw to the wrong end; he then top-edged a pull off Watson on 46 that should have presented Smith with an easy catch at slip, but he was distracted by the wires in the Spidercam web and made a hash of it. Had it been accepted, India would have been 459 in arrears with seven wickets remaining; as it was, Rahul thereafter had the support and protection of his new skipper. He pulled a six off Lyon, and struck 13 other boundaries in a studious 110.

Kohli's was a century in quite a different mood to his other three: careful, calculating, calm. It meant he became the first player to score hundreds in his first three innings as Test captain. He will prove a formidable leader if he can regularly recapture the control he shows at the crease, for it never seemed in serious doubt. Watson took wickets in successive balls in sight of stumps, but the tail took cues from its captain, and India's last five wickets added 183, including Ashwin's poised half-century.

Ashwin then bowled with skill and accuracy into the rough, troubling the three left handers in Australia's top five, and getting the right-handed Watson to play on. But Smith's 71 from 70 balls gave Australia's second innings impetus, before Burns took control of the last hour with a 39-ball 66. With Haddin, he added 86 in 52, and left Yadav with the costliest three-over analysis in Test history. Two incidents involving Nathan Lyon and third umpire Simon Fry were notable. The first, on the fourth day, involved the dismissal of Bhuvneshwar Kumar, given out caught at slip on referral amid considerable doubt about the ball's squeezing from a full length; the second, early on the fifth, occurred when Rohit Sharma, playing and missing at his first delivery, dragged his back foot in, and appeared to be stumped, toe on line, by Haddin, only to be reprieved on ambiguous evidence from one angle. Sharma lingered into the afternoon, before falling to a superb catch at slip by Smith, diving full length to his right.

The turn was slow, the reverse swing came and went, and luck continued favouring the batsmen. At tea, India were 160 for two and needed roughly a run a ball, but Kohli settled for security soon after: in becoming Starc's 50th Test wicket, Raina completed five ducks - and a pair here - in his last seven Test innings. As Rahane and Kumar negotiated the final 50 minutes, it was possible to feel a sense of bowlers' universal exhaustion.
Man of the Match: S. P. D. Smith.