'Today was a nice sign' - Green hoping to trend upwards at No.3

Cameron Green hopes that his vital half-century on the third day in Grenada can kick-start his career as a Test No. 3 having battled conditions where he admitted batters were often left "praying" that they weren't undone by the unpredictable bounce.

Having survived the second evening against a fired-up Jayden Seales, Green navigated a ball that was still new on the third morning, largely alongside the faultless Steven Smith in a stand of 93 that provided a cornerstone for Australia's innings.

After an early rain interruption, Green saw a delivery from Anderson Phillip shoot low past his off stump, beat wicketkeeper Shai Hope and run away for four byes. "Praying…that's all you can really do," he said. "You just try and forget about it as much as possible."

Green was able to keep his focus and compile a 122-ball half-century that was brought up with a crunching straight drive, only to under edge his next delivery into the stumps and he tossed his bat to the ground in frustration.

Still, this was Green's most substantial contribution yet since being handed the No.3 role against South Africa in the World Test Championship final last month. It was a much-needed encouraging sign at a time when Australia's top three remains under significant scrutiny.

"You always need innings here and there just to get you back and get you going, hopefully today was certainly one of those," he said. "A lot of good things I can get out of just spending time in the middle. I think the ball's faced has been trending up. The runs haven't been there, but there's certainly little positives I can take out of it.

"Hopefully my output can be a little bit better than it has been, but today was a nice sign that things are hopefully trending well."

Green, who fell four balls after being given a life in the first innings, added he does not take notice of what is being said about his game outside of the changing room, but he isn't blind to the expectations of an Australia top-order batter.

"You all know when you're playing that there's runs that need to be made certainly when you're batting up the order for Australia," he said. "It's a tough game, so being able to bounce back from tough times is equally as important."

Unsurprisingly, it was a surface where Green never felt fully 'in' given a ball was rarely far away from playing a few tricks although he admitted it may not always have looked that way when Smith was on strike.

"Certainly, last night was tricky [and then] with the new ball today you had to start again and there were a few ball changes, so I never really felt at any point it looked that good," he said. "You'd probably ask a different question to Steve. I think he was batting on a different wicket. He's clearly a class above and that's a tough wicket, so to play as well as he did was incredible."

Smith was so alert to the challenges of the pitch that after facing an early delivery from Phillip which kept low, he altered his trigger movement to stay stiller at the crease.

"This innings, I decided to bat on middle to stay a bit more still [to] try and negate lbw as much as possible with the ball shooting a little bit low," Smith told the broadcast after play. "Try and use my full face as much as possible. I thought I did that pretty well. Then anything loose, just try and cash in on it. You've got to try and put the bad balls away to put the pressure back on the bowler. It was a nice partnership with Greeny. I thought he played really nicely and sort of set us up for the rest of the innings."

Smith termed Australia as being in a "nice spot" with a lead of 254 and three wickets in hand heading into the fourth day although added a target over 300 would be the aim.

"I don't think the wicket is going to get any better to bat," he said. "They'll probably be a few more tricks, particularly with the newer ball. I think we saw today when they had that ball change, it started to do a few more things, and it was tricky. I think the new ball is going to be pretty crucial for us when we get that opportunity."

West Indies believe the chase remains within their grasp although allrounder Justin Greaves, who claimed the wickets of Smith and Beau Webster, said they need to take some lessons from how Australia's middle-order has played.

"The new ball does pretty much everything," he said. "As soon as the ball gets a bit softer, it gets a bit easier for batting. Whatever score we can limit Australia to, possibly under 300, we've got to try and believe we can get it.

"We just need to be positive when we go to bat. Probably taking some notes from both Travis Head and Beau Webster throughout the series…just having that positive mindset."