Aus captain Smith blames India for drawn Melbourne Test

Australia captain Steven Smith defended his decision to declare late and concede a draw four overs early in the third Test on Tuesday, saying India had contributed to the non-result with their tactics in the morning.

Jeers rang out from the crowd of 14,000 at the Melbourne Cricket Ground as Smith and India captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni shook hands out on the pitch, with Australia forgoing 24 balls to capture the final four wickets for victory.

Already leading the four-match series 2-0, Australia needed only a draw to seal it, and Dhoni (24 not out) and Ravichandran Ashwin (eight not out) had grimly protected the seventh wicket for over an hour on a flat pitch offering little for bowlers.

However, Australia have mopped up India's tail quickly throughout the series and the early finish flew in the face of the hosts' mantra to always push for victory.

"There wasn't any up-and-down movement, there wasn't any spin and we got a little bit of reverse swing, which was handy for us," Smith told reporters of the MCG wicket.

'We really didn't want to give India a sniff'

"But we really didn't want to give India a sniff.

"We've got another series win, which is what we were after, and hopefully we can finish well in Sydney."

Smith declared at lunch, setting India 384 for victory at the MCG where the highest successful fourth-innings chase was England's 332 in 1928-29.

That gave Australia's bowlers 70 overs to attack after rain in the morning.

India fell only 48 runs short of chasing down 364 in the first Test at Adelaide Oval, a pitch that gave Australia's match-winning spinner Nathan Lyon plenty to work with.

Smith said the Adelaide finish played into his declaration but also claimed India's tactics in the field during the morning had been a factor.

'We still got a series win, which is the most important thing for us'

"We do say we always play to win, but it was one of those circumstances where India had an opportunity to take the new ball," Smith said of the morning, when Dhoni set defensive fields to stifle the scoring of middle-order batsman Shaun Marsh (99) and Ryan Harris (21).

"They didn't do that, so we thought 'You know what? We'll just give you a few less overs to get these runs'.

"I thought they might have come out a bit harder at the start and we might have got a few wickets there.

"It didn't turn out that way, but we still got a series win, which is the most important thing for us."