Australia v India | Second Test | Day Three
Crowned by captain Pat Cummins’ five-wickets but founded on player of the match Travis Head’s match-defining century, Australia have levelled the battle for the Border-Gavaskar Trophy with a thumping 10-wicket win in Adelaide.
After copping sustained scrutiny for their 295-run defeat in the NRMA Insurance Series opener at Perth last month, Cummins’ men needed just two days and a solitary session to return serve heading for the third match in Brisbane starting next Saturday.
Having resumed at 5-128 this afternoon and trailing by just 29 runs, India faltered in the day’s first over and never recovered their feet to lose their last five wickets for the addition of 47 in 12-5 overs.
Australia’s opening pair Nathan McSweeney (10no) and Usman Khawaja (9no) needed just 14 minutes and 3.2 overs to post the 19 runs needed to complete the win which was achieved 22 minutes before the first session break on day three.
Cummins had borne a brunt of the critiques after Perth where he seemed to lack rhythm in his bowling, but hit his stride last night and again today to pepper India’s batters with aggressive short-pitched bowling that yielded figures of 5-57.
Cummins tears through India with pink-ball haul
Today’s crowd for the abbreviated proceedings took the match total beyond 135,00 for less than two and a half days’ play, a record for any Australia-India Test at Adelaide Oval.
They were in full voice when India fast bowler Mohammed Siraj appeared with bat and then ball in hand, maintaining the rage that built on Saturday evening when the quick and local hero Head were involved in a feisty exchange.
It was Head’s 140 from 141 balls faced – the only score in the match above 50 as seam bowlers dominated on the responsive Adelaide surface – that proved the decisive difference between the teams.
The influence wielded by quicks was underscored by the fact rival spinners Nathan Lyon and Ravichandran Ashwin – two of the game’s best-ever who share more than 1,000 Test wickets between them – bowled a combined total of 19 overs for a single victim (to Ashwin).
The last time Australia bounced back to win after a defeat (in runs) as hefty as that copped in Perth last month was a decade ago.
That was when, after being thumped by Pakistan in Abu Dhabi to the tune of 356 runs, they coincidentally turned it round at Adelaide Oval a month later with a 48-run win triumph over India.
To the surprise of nobody who had been watching the frantic unfolding of events in this breakneck Test, it took Mitchell Starc just two deliveries today to have the crowd on their feet and an over to get them roaring.
The first moment of excitement came when Rishabh Pant – having not added to his overnight score and with his team still 29 runs in deficit – launched himself at Starc and unfurled a wild swing the Australians believed had yielded an edged catch to Alex Carey.
When the fielding team’s review to the third umpire revealed ball had brushed Pant’s pants rather than the edge of his flailing bat the India keeper-batter settled into greater circumspection.
That proved his downfall when he fended skittishly at the final delivery of Starc’s opening over and Steve Smith snared the chance to his right at second slip.
Ashwin might boast six centuries across his 106 Tests to date, but on a pitch where none of his more accomplished batter teammates had reached 50 and against an attack hunting two days off before heading to Brisbane, he was never going to post a seventh.
In fact, he managed just seven before Cummins induced an ungainly hook that brushed Ashwin’s glove en route to Carey.
At that point, India were still nine runs shy of forcing Australia to bat a second time with only car-carrying tailenders Harshit Rana, Jasprit Bumrah and Siraj to lend notional support to Reddy.
A couple of half chances slipped past the home team that might otherwise have landed victory by an innings.
On 23, Reddy pushed at Starc with an angled bat that saw the resultant chance fly low to the left of Smith who did well to get a fingertip to the ball as he dived forward.
Rana – who had shown plenty of aggression when bowling at Marnus Labuschagne on the first evening – found himself on the receiving end of a bouncer barrage from both Cummins and Starc.
He parried one of those short deliveries off his rib cage and over the head of Travis Head who was unable to complete a diving catch running back from short leg, and then copped a thumping blow to his protective helmet in Starc’s next over.
It was perhaps with some relief – and potentially angst at the sight of Reddy taking a single from the first ball of Cummins’ next over – that he finally succumbed fending a ball that took the shoulder of his bat and ballooned to gully.
Reddy ensured Australia batted a second time when the introduction of Scott Boland encouraged him to land a belligerent blow to the long-on boundary.
The allrounder, who was India’s most prolific batter across their two ball-dominated innings, went one better when he heaved a Cummins bouncer beyond the rope at backward square leg.
But when he tried to ramp the ensuing bouncer for six more over the slips cordon he fell into the obviously set trap with McSweeney not having to move in accepting the catch.
Siraj entered Adelaide Oval to resounding refrain of boos from the crowd of more than 33,000 who realised they were unlikely to see a full session’s cricket on day three, and their pantomime ploy almost brought a fairytale end to Australia’s bowling effort.
Umpires step in after heated Siraj gives Head a send-off
However, the crescendo that built as the Australia captain ran in and peaked as India’s last batter edged the expected bouncer to the left of Carey diffused into anti-climax as the keeper fumbled the chance upon tumbling to his right.
Poetically, the end came soon after when Siraj’s attempt to repeat the successful slog over mid-wicket he had launched off Boland only to send a top edge skywards, which Head hung on to running back to mid-on.
To provide an emphatic exclamation point to their run-in of the previous afternoon, Head celebrated with a muted fist pump knowing his involvement in a game he did much to define was at an end.
NRMA Insurance Men’s Test Series v India
First Test: India won by 295 runs
Second Test: Australia won by 10 wickets
Third Test: December 14-18: The Gabba, Brisbane, 11.20am AEDT
Fourth Test: December 26-30: MCG, Melbourne, 10.30am AEDT
Fifth Test: January 3-7: SCG, Sydney, 10.30am AEDT
Australia squad (for second Test): Pat Cummins (c), Sean Abbott, Scott Boland, Alex Carey (wk), Brendan Doggett, Josh Hazlewood, Travis Head, Josh Inglis, Usman Khawaja, Marnus Labuschagne, Nathan Lyon, Mitch Marsh, Nathan McSweeney, Steve Smith, Mitchell Starc, Beau Webster
India squad: Rohit Sharma (c), Jasprit Bumrah (vc), Yashasvi Jaiswal, KL Rahul, Abhimanyu Easwaran, Devdutt Padikkal, Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli, Rishabh Pant, Sarfaraz Khan, Dhruv Jurel, Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Mohammed Siraj, Akash Deep, Prasidh Krishna, Harshit Rana, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Washington Sundar. Reserves: Mukesh Kumar, Navdeep Saini, Khaleel Ahmed, Yash Dayal
This post is an official press release by Cricket Austrlaia.
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