India declared their first innings of the third Test at Melbourne against Australia at 443 runs for 7 wickets on Thursday, the second day of the match. Australia faced six overs and ended the day at eight for no loss. Openers Aaron Finch (3 runs) and Marcus Harris (5) were at the crease.
Indian skipper Virat Kohli declared the innings after Ravindra Jadeja (four runs) was caught by Tim Paine, fending a bouncer from Josh Hazlewood. Rishabh Pant fell for 39, when he was caught at gully by Usman Khawaja, trying to pull Mitchell Starc to the boundary. Rohit Sharma scored his first half-century outside the subcontinent in three years as he tried to bat positively after the circumspect start to the day by Kohli and centurion Cheteshwar Pujara.
Pat Cummins was the pick of the Australian bowlers, claiming three for 72.
Nearly all of the Indian batsmen got starts in the innings, with six of the batsmen scoring over 30 runs. While Mayank Agarwal (76), skipper Virat Kohli (82) and Rohit Sharma (63 not out) went past 50, Cheteshwar Pujara made 106, his 17th Test century. However, the scoring rate remained very slow for India throughout the innings on the sluggish Melbourne wicket. India batted 170 overs for its 443 runs, with Pujara alone facing 319 balls for his 106 runs.
