Australia vs India, 4th Test, Brisbane, 1st day | T-10 NEWS

*Most recent entry will appear at the top, please refresh your page for the latest updates. All times are local.

9.05am local/4.35am IST

Good morning and welcome back to our coverage of the final game of an explosive, utterly dramatic series. There’s hardly been a day of this Test series that hasn’t been sustained quality all round. And perhaps the only argument against that is all the peripheral drama on the final day of the Sydney Test; but there have been arguments, non-stop and loud, around all of that for the last few days. Today is the chance to make it all about the sensational cricket again. And there will, perhaps, even a deliberate de-escalation from Tim Paine and his men who hold the advantage in many ways coming into this match; India’s medical table has continued to pile up, so much so that they had to let go of their new-found tradition of naming the XI a day prior to the start. It is touch and go for many big names today – Ashwin, Bumrah, Agarwal. Add to that the fact that his game is at the Gabba, where Australia haven’t lost since 1988. Their prime batsmen are in form again, and their bowlers will be have another crack at a softened batting line-up.

That isn’t to say India are completely out of it, of course. Each time they’ve been down this series, they have proved capable of bouncing back. At 1-1 coming into this game, they are still in possession of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy. And 1-1 is all it’ll need to be for them to hold onto it till the next series. The top order’s getting starts, fifties, and occupying the crease solidly over the last couple of innings – will a century finally come from one of the top three? One of many intriguing questions for after we know the answer to the big one – do they have 12 men on their feet to put on a teamsheet today?