Australia vs India: Remembering the evergreen Adelaide Test of 2003

Day 4: Dravid's double ton and Agarkar's hour of glory

Ajit Agarkar took 6 for 42 in second innings

As the play began on Day 4, Dravid didn't take much time to complete his fourth double hundred, ensured India crossed 500 run mark. He was the last man to go when India's total was 523 conceding a slender lead of 33 runs. The Wall (as Dravid is popularly called) had stood firm for nearly six hours at the crease, and had made Australians spend nearly two days on the field.

With just over five sessions remaining in the match, the draw seemed to be a more probable outcome. But the Kangaroos were famous for enforcing a result in favour of them from any given point in a match. They came to bat with the same mindset in the second innings but this time the script was being written by someone else who was less expected to do that!

Ajit Agarkar, the quickest bowler in the Indian squad, struck in his second over removing opener Justin Langer and a couple of overs later packed off the first innings hero Ponting for a nought when Aussies' score was just 18. Another new ball operator, Ashish Nehra joined the party by removing dangerous Matthew Hayden for 17.

Steve Waugh then joined Damien Martyn to steady the ship and added 65 useful runs for the fourth wicket. But the golden arms of Sachin Tendulkar and magic reflexes of Dravid did the damage for Australia twice, sending both the set batsmen to pavilion in a span of 3 runs.

Adam Gilchrist made a quickfire 43 of 41 balls before Kumble bowled him around the legs leaving the hosts at 183 for 6. Agarkar was brought back into attack who cleaned up the rest of the host batting for a modest-looking 196. It was Agarkar's best bowling performance in Tests and it remained so till he retired.

Being set the target of 230 India had to bat out 10 overs before the day's close. Indian openers Aakash Chopra and Virender Sehwag made a brisk start and ended the day with 37 without any wicket.