Plan was to fight till the end without thinking about result: Rahane
Sydney: The talk going into day five was to fight till the end without thinking about the result, said India skipper Ajinkya Rahane after his team pulled off a memorable draw against Australia in the third Test here on Monday.
Before Hanuma Vihari and Ravichandran Ashwin batted out the entire evening session to deny the home team, India was even in contention for a win when Rishabh Pant (97) and Cheteshwar Pujara (77) were in the middle.
"Our talk coming this morning was to show character and fight till the end. Not to think about the result. Really happy with the way we fought especially today but also throughout the game," Rahane said at the post-match presentation.
"Even in the first innings when Australia were 200 for 2 and getting them all out for 338 was really good," he added.
Pant came ahead of Hanuma Vihari at number five, a move that was made keeping the left-right combination in mind, said Rahane.
"There are few areas we can improve (ahead of the fourth Test) on but special mention to Vihari and Ashwin. The way they batted in the end and showed character was really good to see. Credit to him (Pant) for the way he played," said the skipper.
Australia skipper Tim Paine rued the dropped chances for which he had only himself to blame. He dropped Pant twice and Vihari once.
"I thought we created enough chances to win the game, this one's a tough one to swallow. Our bowlers were superb, Lyon bowled well. Just that we (especially me) didn't hold onto our catches," he said.
"Looking forward to Brisbane now. We didn't play our best in the last two games, but we were somewhat good with the bat in this Test. There were a few positives for us, our bowlers created plenty of chances."
However, Paine praised the efforts of debutant Will Pucovski and fellow rookie Cameron Green.
"I think having two young kids (Pucovski and Green) playing Test cricket, it's a great thing as they were sensational. I thought Green was fantastic yesterday," he said referring to his 84.
It was another special performance from Steve Smith who was back among runs with a 131 and 81 in the game.
"On day three or four, we felt that a few kept low, few that bounced a bit more. But there was not much of it today. They fought really hard," said the Australian mainstay.
On his man of the match performance, Smith added: "Always means a lot when you score a hundred for your country. To be able to do that here on my home ground is pretty special. Doesn't mean a lot now as we didn't win the game."
"I wanted to be a little bit more aggressive at times, went up and down through the gears throughout my innings, absorbed the pressure when needed to. Not too much else, just watched the ball hard and concentrated well."
Australia have not lost a Test at the Gabba since 1988. The final Test begins on January 15.
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Student found dead in hostel room in IIT Kharagpur
Kolkata (PTI): A 22-year-old M Tech student was found dead in his hostel room in the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, the second such incident reported on the campus within a span of 10 days.
The student, identified as Soham Haldar, was found hanging from the ceiling of his hostel room on Tuesday and he was immediately taken to the institute hospital, where doctors declared him brought dead, an IIT Kharagpur official said.
Haldar, a dual-degree student in Electronics and Electrical Communication Engineering, was a boarder of the Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya Hall of Residence on the campus.
Police from the Kharagpur Town police station have initiated a probe into the incident as preliminary findings indicated that it could be a case of suicide, though the exact cause of death will be ascertained following the post-mortem examination, the official said.
In a statement, the institute expressed deep grief over the student's death and said a detailed inquiry has been initiated.
The authorities have informed the family and are extending all possible assistance to them, it added.
Director Suman Chakraborty told PTI that the institute will strengthen the mechanism to identify stressed-out and depressed students and take follow-up steps to address their issues.
The grief-stricken parents of the student, who hailed from Barasat in North 24 Parganas district, have come to the campus and the authorities will speak to them, he said.
"Haldar's friends, faculty and staffers also could not gauge any stress or anxiety in him. But we need to enable students suffering from anxiety and extreme stress to open up their minds and do everything needed to prevent such incidents," he said.
Investigators are also scrutinising CCTV footage from the hostel premises to piece together the sequence of events leading to the incident.
The incident comes close on the heels of another student's death reported on April 18, when 21-year-old Jaibir Singh Dodia, a third-year Mechanical Engineering student from Ahmedabad, allegedly died after jumping from the eighth floor of the Atal Bihari Vajpayee Hall of Residence. That case is also under investigation.
The back-to-back incidents have once again brought the issue of mental health and student support systems at the institute into focus, especially in view of several such cases reported last year.
