India 296 and 164 for 3 (Kohli 44*, Rohit 43) need another 280 runs to beat Australia 469 and 270 for 8 dec (Carey 66, Labuschagne 41, Starc 41, Jadeja 3-58, Shami 2-39, Umesh 2-54)

India may have still felt a little cross with themselves at stumps, though, losing perhaps a wicket more than they would have liked by then, two of them to aggressive shots. Rohit Sharma was lbw to Nathan Lyon, missing a sweep from a stump-to-stump line, and Cheteshwar Pujara toe-ended an attempted ramp over the slips off a Pat Cummins bouncer.

Both batters will argue, though, that these are shots they usually play well. They will also argue that the same positivity had helped them stitch a second-wicket stand of 51 in 77 balls. The two wickets, however, fell in the space of five balls, turning 92 for 1 to 93 for 3.

As they safely negotiated the last over of the day, a largely India-supporting crowd was in fine voice, a section of them belting out this number from the 1975 blockbuster Sholay: "yeh dosti, hum nahin todenge [we'll never break this friendship]." Australia will want to break it as soon as possible when day five dawns.

Chants of "Cheat! Cheat! Cheat!" continued to follow Green through the rest of the evening, particularly when he bowled. A World Test Championship that had been full of quality cricket now had the one ingredient it had been missing: controversy and needle.

During the first session of the day, Green had had a far different effect on the crowd, keeping them quiet as he added 18 runs in 87 balls to his overnight score of 7. His dismissal was in keeping with the tone of his innings: he attempted to pad away a Ravindra Jadeja delivery from over the wicket only for the ball to hit his pad and roll onto the wicket.

By then, Australia had added 44 to their overnight 123 for 4 while losing two wickets in 19 overs - Marnus Labuschagne the other batter dismissed, nicking Umesh Yadav to first slip. India had bowled with discipline while extracting just enough from the surface to keep the batters vigilant; with Australia's lead just 340, they may have hoped to wrap their innings up before it got to 400.

Mohammed Shami, who had bowled frugally and beaten the bat multiple times without any reward in his previous spells, came back when India took the second new ball and dismissed Starc and Pat Cummins when they were looking to slog for quick runs. Australia declared at the stroke of Cummins' dismissal, setting India a never-before-achieved 444 to win.