The Melbourne Cricket Ground witnessed the most sensational partnership of Washington Sundar and Nitish Kumar Reddy, which kept India alive in the fourth Test against Australia. The visitors needed a fightback with the series tied at 1-1, and Sundar and Reddy delivered at the right moment. At that point, the visitors were crumbling at 221/7 after losing Ravindra Jadeja and Rishabh Pant and were behind by 253 runs, as only Mohammed Siraj and Jasprit Bumrah remained as the Indian batting tail. Australia appeared to be on the road to forcing a follow on. Nitish and Sundar put together an excellent 127-run stand, India's second-highest eighth-wicket partnership on Australian soil. While Sundar blocked and defended well, Reddy took the aggressive route, finishing the day unbeaten on 105*. Also Read | Watch: Sam Billings Escapes Run Out as Melbourne Stars Fail to Appeal in BBL 2024-25 Sundar, facing 162 balls, deservedly bashed a fifty, but Reddy made the most of the conditions and continued to belted his first Test century. Together, they prevented India from suffering the indignity of follow-on in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy (BGT 2024-25), which is ongoing. As the day's play went on, Washington Sundar gave credit to captain Rohit Sharma and head coach Gautam Gambhir for their belief and advice after the day's play. Here is what Washington told the press in Melbourne “One thing, especially with Rohit bhai (Sharma) and Gauti bhai (Gautam Gambhir), is that they keep telling us to fight no matter what. For India, in a ground like MCG, we will do everything. They kept telling me that they believed in me and what I was capable of in this format. Very happy about it (his batting performance); it would have been better if I had scored more runs and not gotten out. But we are in a good position,” Talking about the Nitish Reddy and Washington Sundar's collaboration, the team was close to making a record, with only two runs short of the highest eighth-wicket stand for India in Australia, by Sachin Tendulkar and Harbhajan Singh in the year 2008. Their contributions not only levelled out the innings but also brought down the gap of Australia's total because the side concluded the day with a score of 358/9.