Siddle's career-best effort helps dig Australians out of fourth Test hole Due to BCCI restrictions on photography accreditation, the Herald will be bringing you all the action from India in the form of MS Paint renderings, courtesy of our work experience kid, Bobby Hundreds. Here we see Shane Watson swapping his dunce's cap for the Baggy Green, completing a rollercoaster fortnight in which he was stood down for the third Test, flew home for the birth of his son, then returned to India to become Australia's 44th Test captain. Australia's tail has once again shown up the top order to revive the visitors' hopes in the fourth and final Test against India on Friday. In Mohali, Mitchell Starc top scored with 99 to boost Australia's total and a week later it is Peter Siddle who has come to the rescue with a career-best contribution that leaves them in more respectable shape at 8-231. After being in deep trouble at 7-136 the stubborn resistance of Siddle (47 not out) and Steve Smith (46) allowed Australia to stay in the contest on a bone-dry, cracking pitch crafted for their destruction. Ravi Shastri, the former India cricketer turned larger than life commentator, described it best: "Put this pitch in a beauty contest, it would come last." It is little wonder that the Australian camp entered the final Test against India doubting that it would last a full four days, let alone five. They had hoped, perhaps quixotically, they would not be on the wrong end. But Australia's pace attack, featuring Siddle, James Pattinson, and Mitchell Johnson, will fancy their chances of enjoying some success of their own on the broken-up black soil at the Feroz Shah Kotla Stadium. The menacing Johnson, in particular, will not have been displeased to see the flyer from Ishant Sharma that clattered into Phillip Hughes' helmet in the morning. Australia's spinners Nathan Lyon and Glenn Maxwell will hardly have been distressed at what they witnessed on Friday either. "That's probably not the day-one wicket that I'm used to playing on," Smith said. It's broken up a fair bit to start off with so it's obviously going to get tougher and tougher to bat on throughout the match...231 is not a bad day, I don't think. Hopefully we can grind out another 50 or so tomorrow and I think that will be quite competitive as a first-innings score on that wicket. It is going to be good for us to bowl on. While the lower order saved the day Shane Watson did not enjoy an ideal start to his Test captaincy. Like a US President slipping down the stairs at his inauguration, Shane Watson's opening day in charge of Australia came unstuck. Friday's middle order capitulation was anything but what he had in mind for his first outing as Test captain, nor was another modest score of his own. Watson had been lucky to survive on seven - escaping on two fronts, a stumping attempt and a leg-before chance, on the same ball - but did not last much longer. Ravindra Jadeja, having dismissed Clarke five times in this series, continued his captain's curse by having Australia's stand-in leader stumped, this time successfully, by MS Dhoni after lunch. Australia, having been travelling along nicely via Phillip Hughes (45) and Ed Cowan (38) in the morning, lost 5-30. The absence of Clarke to prop up the faltering order was felt dearly. They could already begin thinking about booking early flights home as the series' leading bowler Ravi Ashwin (4-40) cleaned up again. As was the case in Mohali it was left to the tail, accompanied by a patient Smith, to try and clean up the mess and they did so effectively. Smith was not meant to even play in this series but his temperament against the spin of Jadeja, Ashwin and Pragyan Ojha suggests he should have been in the top six from the start. Stylistically, the 23-year-old is closer to Clarke in the way he combats India's deadly slower bowlers than another other Australian batsman here. A 53-run partnership with Siddle kept Australia afloat on Friday afternoon, and the Victorian added more valuable runs late in the day with state colleague Pattinson (11 not out). Siddle passed his previous best score of 43 against England at the SCG in Sydney in 2011. "I think that he's shown us how to play against the quality spin over here," Smith said of Siddle. He's very comfortable so hopefully he can grind out another 40 or 50 tomorrow himself, and the tail can put on another 60 or 70. That'd be great. Smith defended the failure of Australia's recognised batsmen to hold up the order. The team has had only one player, Clarke with his 130 in Chennai, score a hundred in the series. India, meanwhile, has six between them including two double centurions. It's good to be critical of that. It's something we haven't done very well this series," Smith said. This wicket though, it's more of a second-innings wicket than it is a first-innings wicket. There's not much you can do sometimes on these wickets if the ball takes some rough. You've just got to try to stick to your game plan as much as you could. A ball's got your name on it sometimes and it will get you. Clarke will leave Delhi on Saturday for further assessment on his injured back. "The plan is for Michael to return to Sydney as soon as possible to have a series of scans and we will monitor his progress over the coming days before deciding on the best course of action," physiotherapist Alex Kountouris said.