The Australians, who are chasing a world record 17th consecutive Test win, finished off the Indian second innings after tea on the third day to leave themselves plenty of time to get the runs on a good batting pitch.

However, history is still heavily stacked against them winning as only one side in 131 years of Test cricket have ever scored more runs in the fourth innings to win a Test.

That was in 2003 when the West Indies made 418-7 to beat Australia in Antigua.

No team has scored 370 or more batting last to win on Australian soil and Ricky Ponting's team will have to show a dramatic improvement on their first innings when they were skittled out for just 212.

The Australians briefly looked as though they would be chasing a much smaller target when they ripped through the Indian top-order to reduce the tourists to 160-6 but they struggled to take the last four wickets.

Sachin Tendulkar (13), Rahul Dravid (3) and Saurav Ganguly (no score) made a combined total of 16 runs but Vangipurappu Laxman, who has a knack of making big scores against the Australians, was once again a thorn in their side.

PATIENT INNINGS

He top-scored with a patient 79 and shared two vital partnerships, a 75-run stand with wicketkeeper Mahendri Singh Dhoni for the seventh wicket to halt Australia's momentum, then a 51-run ninth-wicket stand with Rudra Pratap Singh to push the final margin past 400.

The Australian fast bowlers were forced to toil hard for their wickets on another hot day at the WACA. Stuart Clark captured four wickets, Brett Lee got three and Mitchell Johnson one, while all-rounder Andrew Symonds collected two in one over when he gave up bowling medium pace and switched to spin.

The Australians looked to have regained the upper hand when they picked up four big-name wickets before lunch but were unable to finish off the tourists.

Nightwatchman Irfan Pathan occupied the crease for two hours in scoring 46, while Dhoni made an adventurous 38 that featured two huge sixes and RP Singh made a useful 30 after his duck in the first innings.

Australia are bidding for a world record 17th consecutive test win after equaling their own mark of 16 with victory in last week's second test in Sydney.

Australia also won 16 in a row between 1999 and 2001 but their streak came to a shuddering halt when they were beaten by India in Calcutta when Laxman made a career-best 281.