McGrath goes from 'strokemaker' to 'solid' to resist India

It took Australia only 36 minutes on Saturday morning to pick up the last three wickets and bowl India out for 406, a lead of 187 of the hosts. The task was cut out for the tourists - a hard graft was the need of the day if they wanted to avert a three-day defeat. There were rough patches on the pitch that constantly kept the spinners interested and the batters alert.

Beth Mooney started off finely with a flurry of fours before an absent-minded stroll cost her a wicket. Phoebe Litchfield avoided a pair and look solid, before an ill-timed reverse sweep - a strength of hers but not called for against the guile of Sneh Rana - led to her demise. Two down for 56, still 131 adrift of making India bat again, Tahlia McGrath strode out to the middle with Ellyse Perry waiting.

This is McGrath's first series as Australia's full-time vice-captain. She had identified that her task as Alyssa Healy's deputy would be to help the bowlers - given that she fields at mid-on or mid-off - while Healy could focus on setting the fields and keeping wickets. McGrath gave a good account of herself with the bat in the first innings with a sprightly 50 despite the visitors being bowled out for 219.

Friday, though, really tested her. She let a couple of off-drives from Smriti Mandhana slip through her legs - on successive balls - and largely appeared to be away from the bowling discussions. Healy and Ellyse Perry were regularly seen making plans and field arrangements with the bowler, be it with Ashleigh Gardner, who bowled 41 overs on the day, or Jess Jonassen. However, as the day wore on, she began chipping in with her inputs. Like after the 66th over with Jemimah Rodrigues and Richa Ghosh going great guns.

McGrath paused the game by running towards extra cover from mid-on with Jonassen, Gardner and Healy all involved. It helped that she had bowled a few thrifty overs in a quiet phase after lunch. Soon, Australia had managed to separate the pair and land a few blows in quick time. This meant that behind the calm exterior was a confident player who walked out to bat on the 84th ball of the innings.

McGrath was prepared to take her time to get her eye in and gauge the pace of the surface. Unlike in the first innings, where she got going with a flurry of fours, she only hit one off her 24th ball in the second. She did not look all at ease against spin at the start, often defending with hard hands and getting beaten. But she was happy to grind it out. Her first four was a fierce cut, her second an under-edge off a Rajeshwari Gayakwad scooter.

Perry did not use the sweep - a shot that brought Rodrigues and Ghosh success on the second day - while McGrath used it only when the ball was on the pads. She was happy to play with the spin and accumulate her runs. With Gayakwad bowling good areas on either side of lunch, McGrath bided her time and all her four fours off her were through the off side (with the spin).

"She batted well in the first innings as well," Perry said after stumps. "Tahlia's approach is always [to attack]. She plays a lot of great shots, she is a stroke-maker. But [on Saturday] she looked tight, in among some of those great drives. She is fantastically solid on defence throughout."

Even Perry's fall did not deter her as she carried on to bring up a 119-ball half-century, becoming the first visiting batter to score one in each innings in a Test in India. The long stride forward, head down, straight bat to smother the spin - she repeated the drill 139 times in her 177-ball knock. She was eventually done in by a Harmanpreet Kaur offspinner that took her inside edge and disturbed the leg stump. By then she had scored 73 and batted two-and-a-half times more than the first innings, and put Australia in the lead.

Ever since McGrath broke into the scene, she has been called the 'next Ellyse Perry', a tag that Perry said did a "huge disservice to TMac."

"She is an absolutely wonderful player in her own right and has had some wonderful years in the last little bit," Perry said. "The contribution she makes to our group with both ball and bat across all three formats has been so pivotal. She is also the vice-captain of the team. She has a really cool head, she is great to bat with. She keeps things really calm there. I enjoyed the partnership today. We had a very clear plan - to bat for as long as we could and play what was in front of us without thinking about what was going to happen down the track - and we were confident with the way we were going about it. She is a huge player of stature in our team and is great to play with her."

Australia finished the day effectively at 46 for 5. With the track deteriorating steadily, what a safe total to defend could be is anybody's guess. But McGrath's stoic innings and her twin partnerships with Perry and Healy ensured Australia put up a fight and avoided a repeat of what happened to England last week in Navi Mumbai.