Key events
41st over: India 154-8 (Reddy 23, Bumrah 0) Reddy clatters Starc over extra cover for six, and why not. That’s a ridiculous shot!
He tries an uppercut later in the over but is beaten for pace and almost falls over as he staggers backwards. A single off the penultimate ball allows him to keep strike.
“I can’t be the only Australian wishing Starc would take a bit more time with the tail?” says Jordan White. “I’d rather have them struggling under lights than McSweeney and Khawaja trying to face up against Bumrah with the pink ball… does this make me a bad sport?”
The twilight session adds a fascinating element to pink-ball Tests doesn’t it? It feels like the closest our generation will get to watching cricket played on uncovered wickets. Maybe Australia should reverse their batting order like Don Bradman’s team at the MCG in 1936-37.
40th over: India 146-8 (Reddy 16, Bumrah 0) Reddy thumps Boland – back on in place of Marsh – over extra cover for four. A single off the penultimate ball allows him to keep strike.
“India is on its way to match the same score that they were bundled out for in Perth,” writes Krishnamoorthy V. “Cricket enthusiasts are full of superstitions (I used to never leave my seat when India was batting, waiting for the drinks break) and they may well fancy a similar result too.”
As the old saying goes, you should never judge a pitch until Jasprit Bumrah has bowled on it.
39th over: India 141-8 (Reddy 11, Bumrah 0) A double-wicket maiden for Starc, whose figures are now 12-2-39-5. He could easily end up with career-best figures here – at the moment his best performance is 6 for 50 at Galle way back when.
WICKET! India 141-8 (Rana b Starc 0)
Five wickets for Mitchell Starc! Harshit Rana is bowled neck and crop by another beautiful inswinger. It’s Starc’s first five-for in a home Test since 2019.
WICKET! India 141-7 (Ashwin LBW b Starc 22)
Mitchell Starc strikes with the second ball of a new spell. It was a classic Starc dismissal, a very full inswinger that hit Ashwin on the shin in front of middle stump. Ashwin reviewed, presumably because he fancies winning the award for the worst review in history: it was hitting middle a quarter of the way up.
Absurd review on that, that was a handy innings from Ashwin, a breezy run-a-ball 22.
38th over: India 141-6 (Reddy 11, Ashwin 22) Four more to Ashwin, pinged over square leg when Marsh drifts onto the pads. These are handy runs for India – and handy balls too, because every over increases the chance of Australia’s openers having to start against Jasprit Bumrah as the light is fading.
Marsh is struggling here, as figures of 4-0-26-0 suggest.
37th over: India 133-6 (Reddy 11, Ashwin 15) Ashwin plays another jaunty chip shot, this time lifting Cummins over mid-on for four. It’s easy to forget that Ashwin has six Test hundreds, the same as MS Dhoni, Hansie Cronje, Imran Khan, Warwick Armstrong and Stan McCabe.
36th over: India 126-6 (Reddy 11, Ashwin 8) Thanks Geoff, evening everyone. Mitch Marsh almost strikes with the first ball after the drinks break; Ravichandran Ashwin edges a leaden-footed drive just wide of the diving McSweeney in the gully and away for four. It might even have brushed his fingertips but he had no chance of catching it.
Ashwin chips three more over mid-on. There were a few shouts of “catch!” but it cleared Scott Boland pretty comfortably.
Geoff Lemon
35th over: India 118-6 (Reddy 11, Ashwin 1) Reddy bails out of facing as Cummins delivers the ball, and Cummins, a bit steamed, lets fly the replacement delivery at the batter’s head. Reddy gets something on it – not bat, it’s called as leg byes – that sends the ball over the keeper for four. Then a single, before Ashwin walking into a drive gets his first run.
And that is drinks. Meaning that Rob Smyth is on his way in. Give him a guard of honour.
34th over: India 112-6 (Reddy 10, Ashwin 0) Reddy picks off a few runs from Marsh: two to the leg side, one to the off, just getting forward and nudging. Ashwin is just staying in at this stage.
Disappointment now for Gervase Green, who a while back wrote to me, “I don’t want to sound “unAustralian”, but the best thing about Australia taking four wickets early is that my two favourite cricketers – Rohit Sharma and Rishabh Pant – are at the crease.
Pant especially is the most fun to watch since Virender Sehwag hung up his long-suffering bat. And Rohit just oozes authority at the crease, even when in a rut.”
33rd over: India 109-6 (Reddy 7, Ashwin 0) Ravichandran Ashwin to the crease, then. Leaves the sixth ball of the over.
WICKET! Pant c Labuschagne b Cummins 21, India 109-6
Nasty ball! Cummins doesn’t need to hit the stumps to get a wicket, he reminds us. Does the opposite. Goes upstairs, having only bowled a couple of short balls today. This one leaps from a short length that wasn’t crazy short. Pant tries to cover it and play it down, but the bounce is too high. Up near the shoulder of the bat, perhaps even the base of the handle, it crashes into the stick and loops to the cordon. Labuschagne running forward can’t add another drop to the Australian tally with a catch that easy.
32nd over: India 107-5 (Pant 20, Reddy 6) Moment of truth, Mitch Marsh to bowl. Ideally you’d want him trying something with the newer ball, to see if he could find swing. Might still get something here. But not if he drops short to Pant, who punts him over square leg for four. Slight bit of movement to Reddy, who plays for it and drives square for two.
“Siva here from Toronto, Canada. Big fan of your podcast. Is it time to bring on Marnus yet?” Siva gives the sarcasm symbol. “Also, whats up with Australian fielding these days? I don’t ever recollect seeing so many catches going down from any Aussie side.”
It’s a strange one. Most Australian sides have had great individual fielders. I’m not sure this side does. Smith probably still is one, Labuschagne has become one in terms of boundary riding and covering ground. But Khawaja never was one, Head isn’t, Marsh isn’t very mobile, and they lose a lot with Green out of the gully for the much smaller McSweeney.
31st over: India 100-5 (Pant 15, Reddy 4) Cummins is back. Hasn’t had a bad day, 21 runs from his first seven overs, but hasn’t quite been his relentless self. And that continues, driven through mid off by the right-handed Reddy for four! Just straight of the fielder. Cummins bowled an uncharacteristic number of those overcooks in Perth as well, you don’t see him getting driven down the ground often. India to triple figures.
Aditya is right that the Rohit-era pitches have often been the most severely turning, except occasionally when they want a really flat one, like Ahmedabad last year when a draw would win India the series against Australia. There’s nothing wrong with a turning pitch per se, as long as it’s not falling apart from ball one, but it does neutralise India’s current advantages of good pace bowlers and good strokeplaying batters.
30th over: India 95-5 (Pant 14, Reddy 0) Boland keeps working away at Pant, making him play at the ball consistently. Finally off strike with one run.
29th over: India 94-5 (Pant 13, Reddy 0) Starc to Pant, who does what he had to do in Perth too, playing an un-Pant-like defensive knock before finding another brace to the leg side, nicely turned towards midwicket.
Aditya Anchuri is planning development strategy. “I feel that it’s so important we stop making big spinning tracks unnecessarily in India. We can win on normal wickets, even just traditional Indian wickets unlike the Bunsens we’re seeing now. Batsmen like KL and Gill are just so natural looking, it’s crazy we sometimes have to go overseas to see the best of them. It’s gotten worse since Rohit’s captaincy for whatever reason.”
28th over: India 91-5 (Pant 10, Reddy 0) Ooooohhh another missed chance for Australia! This time a non-review. Boland smashes Nitish Kumar Reddy on the pads, but the angle looks like it’s heading down leg. Reddy’s front pad is angled itself, diagonally towards the leg side, which accentuates the visual suggestion. And maybe the umpire thinks there was an edge? But the replay shows that it clips both pads, making two sounds, and would have hit leg stump flush. Three reds.
27th over: India 90-5 (Pant 9, Reddy 0) Starc bowling to Pant, who isn’t doing anything aggressive at the moment. Gets beaten, drives a couple of runs, then one.
26th over: India 87-5 (Pant 6, Reddy 0) One ball for Reddy to survive. He leaves.
WICKET! Rohit lbw Boland 3, India 87-5
Boland back, and dropped again! Second one goes down off the returnee. Tough catch to complete, because McSweeney only gets one hand to it in the gully, but might have moved better initially, enabling him to reach it with two hands? Anyway, Boland isn’t mad for long, because four balls later, after Pant gets off strike, Boland cuts a ball back into the right-handed Rohit that nails him in front of off stump, and is angling in to hit the timber. Given on the field, again no review. India have been good with adjudicating their own lbws today.
25th over: India 86-4 (Pant 5, Rohit 3) Here comes Starc, on the long lope to the crease. Pant flicks a single.
Jono Haylen is on the email. “Assuming KL Rahul was correct in thinking he edged Boland’s first delivery, do India send a message out to the batters and say don’t walk on any fine edges and review any fine edges given out? With the theory that Snicko is broken. Then, Australia doing the same. We’ve seen Amazing Adelaide, could this be The Broken Snicko Test?”
It’s possible for it to be faulty. I just thought he didn’t hit it. Was trying to turn the bat in his hands, and it might have slightly missed. Then again, the sound tech doesn’t pick up every edge. Famously, the first pink-ball Test here in 2015, Nathan Lyon was given not out after clearly edging the ball sweeping because he was so far down the wicket that the microphones didn’t catch it. There was a Hot Spot on his bat and a deviation, but the protocols and the umpire’s interpretation of them combined to botch the call. It was Nigel Ll-ll-ll-ll-ll-llong in the booth. Lyon went on to make a match-defining score and NZ lost the Test.
24th over: India 84-4 (Pant 4, Rohit 2) Scott Boland starts us off, and Rishabh Pant gets off strike with a deflection off the pad. Rohit glances a single.
Had a sprinkle of rain here over the break, but the covers are off and we’ve restarted on time.
Dinner – India 82 for 4 after choosing to bat
It was a strange session. A wicket first ball of the Test, Australia running around. Then KL and Gill got India right back on top, before a couple of strange dismissals trying to leave, and the lbw.
Here’s a number from the Viz tracking. Cummins didn’t bowl a single ball that session that would have hit the stumps. Starc and Boland bowled three each, two of which got lbw dismissals. Maybe… worth trying that more?
Anyway. Australia now in a good spot, but many a team has let an innings slip from four down.
Meanwhile, if you want to catch up on the other Test, Harry Brook made yet another Test hundred off about 90 balls.
23rd over: India 82-4 (Pant 4, Rohit 1) Starc to India’s captain, the biggest threat today, and Rohit is trying to defuse it by playing across his pad repeatedly, trying to work the ball to leg. That doesn’t work, a fielder is set at short midwicket, so Rohit drives chancily on the up and nearly nicks one angled across. Then serious bounce from Starc takes the next up past the shoulder of the bat.
“Keenly following proceedings from cold and windy Germany where the few cricket enthusiasts like me are braving the chill to keep up with the pink-ball drama. I guess the contrast couldn’t be starker — while Adelaide Oval is abuzz with energy under the summer skies, Germany’s freezing winter adds a layer of coziness to late-night match-watching sessions, with warm drinks in hand and hopes as high as the stakes in this rivalry.”
When you said braving the chill, Dasika, I thought you meant watching it outdoors! That would be commitment.
22nd over: India 82-4 (Pant 4, Rohit 1) So the skipper comes out, Rohit Sharma back batting at six, where I think he batted here in 2014. And some work to do, along with his keeper. Gets started with a single to square.
WICKET! Gill lbw Boland 31, India 81-4
Finally! A non-Starc wicket, and Boland gets one after the two botched attempts in his first over. That’s as dead as they get when it comes to lbw. Full pitch, angled in, looks like it keeps a bit low as well? And hits Gill on the ankle in front of off stump, on the crease, on a moderate angle. He doesn’t bother to review.
The game has turned. It’s getting cooler and gloomier outside, not the easiest for batting.
21st over: India 81-3 (Gill 31, Pant 4) Now Pant gets going with a boundary! Second ball, flicks it square. Wickets and fours for Starc today. He now has 69 wickets at 18 in pink-ball cricket, with three so far here.
WICKET! Kohli c Smith b Starc 7, India 77-3
What is going on here! Another wicket to the attempted leave. Kohli has the bat up, then starts to come forward, then wants to lift it back up over the rising ball as he detects the line outside off stump. But the bounce is too high, the pace too great. The ball clips the toe of his bat in its backlift, and dips through to second slip where Smith takes it well, low down.
20th over: India 77-2 (Gill 31, Kohli 7) Nearly a run out there, as Gill sprawls into his ground at the non-striker’s end after calling for a tight run to the leg side. Kohli loves a fast single. It gets him on strike, and just as the other two kept doing, he fidns the boundary aerially through gully. Dicey method, but it’s not costing them. Kohli steps forward at Boland and drives three more through cover, with a solid clunk of ball meeting bat.
19th over: India 69-2 (Gill 30, Kohli 0) The customary cheer for Virat Kohli as the star player comes to the middle. Made his 30th Test century in Perth. Defends and leaves his first two balls here.
