India’s faint hopes of saving the Test rests on rearguard resistance, with the visitors still 31 runs short of avoiding the follow-on.

Sunil Gavaskar was absolutely livid with Rishabh Pant's ‘stupid’ shot selection which gave Australia their first breakthrough on Day 3 of the fourth Test.

India lost Rishabh Pant and Ravindra Jadeja but were stubbornly inching closer to the follow-on mark as they reached 244-7 at lunch on day three of the fourth Test against Australia on Saturday. India lost both overnight batsmen as they added 80 off 27 overs in the first session as Australia continued to have the upper hand after dominating the first two days.

Nitish Kumar Reddy's unbeaten 105 took India to 358 for nine, still 116 runs short of Australia's first innings score of 474 as rain brought an early end to the third day's play

Nitish Reddy, an unknown entity in red ball cricket before the start of Border-Gavaskar series, virtually bailed India out with his dogged maiden Test century here on Saturday, severely denting Australia`s hopes of winning the Boxing Day contest.