The pair flailed the home attack for just under seven hours in a 353-run fourth-wicket stand that almost certainly has taken a series win away from Australia. The four-match series stood at one all at the start of this, the fourth and final Test.

Tendulkar broke through for his first Test century in 14 months and later his highest Test score, while Laxman continued to torment with his fourth hundred against Australia as India reached a mammoth 650 for five at stumps with three days left to play.

It was the highest score by an overseas team in Australia, surpassing England's 636 at the SCG in 1928-29.

Tendulkar batted out the whole day to be unconquered on 220, put together in more than nine-and-a-half hours off 419 balls and including 30 boundaries. Wicketkeeper Parthiv Patel was not out 45.

Laxman and Tendulkar's herculean stand was the highest for the fourth-wicket by an overseas team in Australia, surpassing the 341 of South African pair Graeme Pollock and Eddie Barlow at Adelaide in 1963-64.

Just when it appeared the pair would bat out the entire day Jason Gillespie bowled Laxman for 178 off his pads in the 165th over with the India in full cry at 547 for four.

Tendulkar finally flourished in the last match of the series after an unproductive run of scores 0, 1, 37, 0 and 44 and scoring only 153 runs in five Tests at an average of 17 throughout 2003.

Tendulkar's last century was 176 against the West Indies in Calcutta in November 2002.

Laxman, the scourge of Australia's bowlers over the last four years, played an exquisite knock of 30 wristy boundaries over 403 minutes off 298 balls.

It was his seventh Test hundred and followed his memorable 281 against Australia in the famous second Calcutta Test of 2001, which turned the series India's way, along with his 167 at the Sydney Cricket Ground in 1999 and 148 in Adelaide earlier in this series.

It was India's second triple-century partnership of the series following Rahul Dravid and Laxman's 303 for the fifth-wicket in the first innings of the tourists' four-wicket win in the second Test.

Laxman also featured in a 376-run fifth-wicket partnership with Dravid (180) in India's famous 171-run win over Australia at Eden Gardens in Calcutta in March 2001.

Tendulkar and Laxman only offered one catching chance each and both came late in the day.

Stuart MacGill had the misfortune to drop both Tendulkar on 149 at mid-on off Nathan Bracken and Laxman on 177 at mid-wicket off Gillespie, just minutes before his dismissal.

Laxman also narrowly survived a run-out on 94 in the second-last over before lunch when he ran halfway down the pitch before being sent back by Tendulkar and just beat MacGill's throw.

Skipper Saurav Ganguly, who had his feet up in the team dressing room for more than a day waiting to bat, lasted 11 balls before he was bowled by a Brett Lee yorker for 16 with his team at 570 for five. It was only the second wicket to fall all day.