Melbourne: Till 5:34pm in Melbourne, India had got their fightback right. Australia had pushed India into a corner by scoring 474 in their first innings. With the series on the line, the response from Rohit Sharma’s team was important and even though the skipper failed to get going, Yashasvi Jaiswal — in the company of KL Rahul initially and then Virat Kohli — had managed to make run scoring look easy.
Then at precisely 5:35pm, the left-hander hit the ball towards mid-on and took off for a quick single. Kohli, at the non-striker’s end, responded to the call by taking a couple of steps but his eyes were on the ball. He wasn’t looking at his partner and hesitated when he saw the fielder (Pat Cummins) approach the ball quickly. In those milliseconds, India lost their way. Both batters virtually ended up at the same end and Jaiswal’s brilliant innings of 82 was over. As he walked off, Jaiswal gestured at Kohli as if to say, ‘My call,’ while Kohli seemed to say the run was a bad idea.
A few minutes later, 5:42pm, Kohli followed Jaiswal back to the dressing room. The former India skipper had promised to be more disciplined and he was. According to CricViz, he scored 1 off 25 balls to deliveries outside off stump in the initial part of his innings, leaving almost half the balls (ignoring full balls). Then, as he grew in confidence, he started playing at that line too. In the last 8 balls in that region, he played at 7 of them and scored 1 run before edging. He had fallen to the same old trick.
At 5:55pm, Akash Deep, sent up the order as a nightwatchman, was also dismissed. In roughly 20 minutes, India went from a relatively comfortable 153/2 to 159/5. That’s the way the game goes sometimes. And when you are down on luck, that is how it seems to go all the time. At close of play, India were 164/5, still trailing by 310 runs.
The day had started with Australia on 311/6 and India had a real chance of finishing off the innings quickly before piling on the runs. But they got their tactics horribly wrong as Cummins and Steve Smith put on some quick runs to take the hosts past 400.
The lack of a clear plan or perhaps the execution of it hurt India. Cummins and Smith batted well no doubt but Rohit never quite managed to put them under pressure. And once the runs started flowing, the bowlers seemed to wilt too. They still ran in but to what end?
Cummins’ knock was particularly brutal. He should have been the weaker link but he scored quicker than Smith in the first hour and by the time India realised what was happening the horse had bolted. The Australian skipper made 49 off just 63 balls before finally being dismissed by Ravindra Jadeja.
The more dangerous presence for India was always Smith and he showed that he was back to his best with a brilliant 140 — his 34th Test ton. He was just about starting to go through the gears when he dragged on in an extraordinary fashion. He had charged down the wicket and tried to hit through the off-side. The ball rebounded off his pads and slowly made its way to the stumps even as he helplessly looked on.
Another 19 runs were added to the total, 474, which would have been closer to the best-case scenario at the start of the day for the hosts.
In response, Rohit move to the opening position backfired as Cummins sent him back cheaply. Rahul (24) was in quickly and he helped stabilise the innings along with Jaiswal. The two share an easy vibe in the middle and that was instantly apparent but a brute of a delivery from Cummins got rid of Rahul on the last ball before tea.
The set-up wasn’t just about a few balls. The pacers planted the idea of how he was trying to trap the batter lbw but the ball that actually got Rahul was one that pitched on middle and seamed away. Given his form and the ease with which he was batting, this was a key wicket.
But Kohli showed that he wasn’t going to be swayed by anything. The 102-run stand he shared with Jaiswal would have had the Aussies worried. They batted with great restrain initially and slowly started to accelerate.
“He’s a class player, we know that,” said Smith after close of play. “Obviously, he played really well in Perth for that 100. And he looked really good today, I thought. ‘Jeez, he’s in for a good one here’.”
And it stayed that way till the unfortunate run-out. Things went haywire after that but with Rishabh Pant, Ravindra Jadeja, Nitish Reddy and Washington Sundar still to come, India will hope to make the most of the pretty decent batting conditions. The odd ball does do something but there are no demons there… yet.
