India vs Australia 3rd Test Day 5 Live Score: Well this is looking increasingly pointless now.

India vs Australia 3rd Test Day 5 Live Score: It is raining now but for half an hour the players and umpires were off the ground because of imminent threat of lightning.

If that happens, then a result becomes practically impossible, unless Australia decide to make it interesting by declaring their second innngs. Even then, the rain has to stay away for anything to happen in the Indian chase.

India vs Australia 3rd Test Day 5 Live Score: It is raining now but for half an hour the players and umpires were off the ground because of imminent threat of lightning. So what is the protocol that umpires follow in such situations? Former umpire Simon Taufel explains on Channel 7: "When there is an imminent threat of lightning, the umpires see a flash of lightning, and then hear a thunderclap within 30 seconds, that is when they suspend play. Obviously there is a degree of common sense also used. If the storm is moving away."

India vs Australia 3rd Test Day 5 Live Score: Not a drop of rain yet despite the cloud cover but those lightning strikes have kept the players and umpires away. Moreover, it really is a matter of time before it starts raining heavily. We are in for a long wait.

India vs Australia 3rd Test Day 5 Live Score: Make no mistake, there have been no dramatic bolts of lightning hitting the Gabbatoir, which probably would've been the image of the stadium in the minds of most non-Australian players before 2021. But there is lightning around the stadium, which makes it a risk to play. Moreover, the radar shows some heavy, long showers rolling in. So much so that one could cast genuine doubt on how much cricket we will get to see today.

India vs Australia 3rd Test Day 5 Live Score: It looks like only a matter of time before that breaks open and engulfs the ground. For now, the lightning is keeping the players off and the Australian second innings has been delayed. If there are records being kept for number of rain delays in a single game of cricket, surely this Test has got somewhere close to breaking it, if not shattering it altogether.

India vs Australia 3rd Test Day 5 Live Score: There is a chance of this innings getting off to a delayed start as there is lightning around. The pitch is also being covered, although there are no rains yet. The Indians are out by the boundary. In fact Akash Deep even walked out before the umpire Richard Illingworth asked him to go back to the ropes.

India vs Australia 3rd Test Day 5 Live Score: At the end of it all, it is Travis Head who breaks this last-wicket stand. India bowled out 185 runs behind. Well Australia have an air of urgency about them. It will be really interesting to see if they go the full Bazball/India Kanpur Test here and then have a red-hot go at India. All of this depending on whether rain allows any kind of continuous cricket, which remains quite unlikely.

India vs Australia 3rd Test Day 5 Live Score: Akash Deep survives an appeal for LBW off the first ball of the 78th over by Lyon, and Australia even burn a review on it. Extra bounce for Lyon second ball and Akash Deep defends that into his pad flap. Travis Head walks in from short leg to take the ball from him but he takes it out and just drops it on the ground. Then he sees Head in front of him and apologises. He looks behind at Carey and apologises. Cue laughter everywhere. Wonder how good an idea it is to annoy Head for India though. Just a single in that over and Akash Deep has moved to 29 off 39 balls, Bumrah on 10 off 38.

Head takes the ball now. Marsh clearly not fit enough to bowl here.

India vs Australia 3rd Test Day 5 Live Score: Right, so this last wicket partnership has lasted one full over and a ball on Day 5. The fourth ball of Lyon's over spinds down leg as Bumrah shapes up for a sweep shot. It misses his bat and body and Carey as well and runs off to the boundary. No other runs in that over and so Lyon technically starts the day with a maiden.

India 256/9, trail by 189

India vs Australia 3rd Test Day 5 Live Score: Pat Cummins had one ball left to bowl in his 21st over, the 75th of the innings. Akash Deep tries to defend it, ends up slicing it on the ground to gully. Nathan Lyon to bowl from the other end.

India 252/9, trail by 193 runs

India vs Australia 3rd Test Day 5 Live Score: So, India are 252/9 in reply to Australia's 445. We are still in the first innings of both sides here, India trailing Australia by 193 runs. Akash Deep has scored 27 runs in 31 balls, Jasprit Bumrah at the other end on 10 off 27. The last-wicket partnership stands on 39 off 54 balls.

India vs Australia 3rd Test Day 5 Live Score: Well we are about 10 minutes away from start of play and so far, no rain at the Gabba. As has been the case for everyday of this Test, it won't stay this way for long.

India vs Australia 3rd Test Day 5 Live Score: Rahul candidly admitted that he had started thinking of padding up whe India were reduced to their last wicket.

"At that stage (213/9), I was thinking more about going and padding up and trying to go back to bad. I'm not sure if they would have enforced the follow-on, so I was thinking about what I need to do about my batting. But it's always nice to see bowlers go out there and get some runs, they put in a lot of efforts in the nets and when it mattered today, I'm happy that they could really play some shots and very exciting shots. It was a very exciting contest in the last half an hour… not just the runs that they got but also the heart that they showed to keep away the bouncers, get behind the ball, defend well, play some nice shots. It will give them and the team a lot of confidence," Rahul told the press after the day's play.

India vs Australia 3rd Test Day 5 Live Score: India's top five have largely been woeful for about six Test matches now, barring one innings in Perth. An outlier in this trend in Australia has been KL Rahul. On Monday and Tuesday, Rahul put up a clinic that the rest of his teammates would do well to pay attention to. He was as compact as a batter can be and accumulated 84 precious runs for India in 139 balls.

India vs Australia 3rd Test Day 5 Live Score: The significance of the moment when Akash Deep scored the runs that helped India avoid the follow-on could be gauged by the reactions of head coach Gautam Gambhir, captain Rohit Sharma and ex-skipper Virat Kohli in the dressing room. The same can be said for understanding the sheer madness of the big six that followed.

India vs Australia 3rd Test Day 5 Live Score: Early reports paint a very unfavourable picture. Rain has probably been the most prominent player in this Test and well, it has pretty much saved India. Unless Australia can pull off a miracle of sorts.

India vs Australia 3rd Test Day 5 Live Score: The remaining Tests are set to be played at the MCG in Melbourne and the SCG in Sydney. India have won their last two Tests at the MCG and the one before that was a draw, which means they haven't lost at the venue since December 2011. Their last defeat at the SCG was in January 2012. After that, Australia forced out a draw against them in January 2015, avoided a potential innings defeat to India thanks to rain in January 2019 and squandered a big advantage with Ashwin and Vihari forcing out a draw in January 2021.

In fact, the first three venues of this series - Perth, the Adelaide pink-ball Test and The Gabba, were all places where Australia have dominant records. While they won the pink-ball Test, they lost the Perth Test for the first time at the Perth Stadium. A draw here would mean they won just one of the three Tests at venues where they have favourable records and now have to keep India out at venues where the latter have a favourable recent record. India came into the series on the back of four consecutive wins against Australia. They can't possibly extend that to five, can they? That is something only the world-beating West Indies sides of the 1970s and 1980s have done since the start of the 20th century. Yes, you read that right, the 20th century, not the 21st.

India vs Australia 3rd Test Day 5 Live Score: …do we see a team celebrating and jubilant after ensuring that their deficit goes below 200 runs and the other side look absolutely dejected. For India avoiding the follow-on yesterday thanks to a last-wicket stand that brought more than 30 runs (and counting) means that Australia have to bat again, thus reducing their chances for a victory. They thus face the very real possibility of going into the fourth match of this five-Test series level with India at 1-1, despite scoring 445 in their first innings at the Gabba and reducing India to 74/5. Their hopes of making India bat again would've been alive even when they reduced their opponents to their last wicket while they still needed 33 runs to avoid the follow-on. But they could not dislodge the last wicket, which is always frustrating regardless of the circumstances, let alone one as dire as this.

India vs Australia 3rd Test Day 5 Live Score: Josh Hazlewood coming back into the squad in place of Scott Boland was the only change Australia made for this Test after Adelaide. Hazlewood bowled one over before walking off yesterday and it has now turned out that he is ruled out for the entire series.

India vs Australia 3rd Test Day 5 Live Score: India brought in Ravindra Jadeja and Akash Deep for this Test. While Jadeja didn't have a great time of it with the ball, he played a colossal knock in the context of the innings, making 77 in 123 balls and putting up important partnerships with KL Rahul and Nitish Kumar Reddy. Akash Deep was unlucky with the ball but he has ended up playing the innings that might go down as one of the most important moments of the series if India come out on top at the end of it all.

India vs Australia 3rd Test Day 5 Live Score: What makes Test cricket unique? Just look at the scenes at the end of Day 4 to find the answer. Australia walked off 193 runs ahead but looking crestfallen. India, on the other hand, were overjoyed. And both of those with good reason, despite seemingly not making any sense at first glance.