Shardul Thakur, who was one of India’s heroes in the fourth Test at Brisbane, also had a role to play in the third drawn Test at Sydney. This was revealed during Ravichandran Ashwin’s YouTube chat with India’s fielding coach R Sridhar on Friday.

The Mumbai cricketer, who was 12th man for the third Test, was sent out to deliver head coach Ravi Shastri’s message from the dressing room when Ashwin and Hanuma Vihari were stitching together their 62-run, match-saving partnership at the Sydney Cricket Ground on January 11.