Batsman Rahul Dravid remained hopeful Saturday that India could claw back the advantage from a dominant Australia over the final two days of the first test despite trailing by 117 runs.
India finished the third day at the Chinnaswamy Stadium at 313 for 8 wickets after an 80-run stand between tail-enders Harbhajan Singh and Zaheer Khan bolstered the home side's score.
"That partnership gave us a bit of hope," Dravid said. "We've still got to be positive and keep believing _ anything can happen on this wicket.
"We're behind a little bit, but not far enough behind that we can't fight back."
Australia scored an impressive first-innings total of 430.
Dravid was responsible for stopping the early damage with a measured half-century after the home side was reduced to 106-4 in the morning session. He took 104 balls to reach 51 against tight Australian bowling and fielding.
"I was really happy with the way I concentrated," he said. "But I would have liked to have carried on. It wasn't the easiest wicket to play shots on, especially when the ball got old and started reverse swinging."
Australia, led by Mitchell Johnson, bowled with discipline to India's top-order batsmen and waited for the mistakes which came regularly.
"We could have done a little bit better today and been in a bit better position to force a result on day four and five," Dravid said.
