Join us for updates, analysis and colour from the second day of the pink-ball Test in Adelaide
Andrew McGlashan18-Dec-2020*Most recent entry will appear at the top, please refresh your page for the latest updates. All times are local.10.00pm: India’s dayUmesh Yadav celebrates after trapping Marnus Labuschagne lbw•Getty Images
As day-night Tests can do, the action in Adelaide went into fast forward as 15 wickets fell with India responding to what looked like a below-par batting effort with a superb team performance from the bowlers in which R Ashwin benefited from the pressure created by the three quick bowlers.That Australia ended as close to India’s 244 as they did was down to a fine innings by captain Tim Paine who was left unbeaten on 73 while Marnus Labuschage, with a somewhat skittish 47, was the only other player to pass 15 and the rest of the top six made 35 between them.The match took on dimensions not entirely dissimilar to two years ago although on this occasion the margin on first innings was wider. But India could not get through six overs unscathed as Pat Cummins breached Prithvi Shaw’s defenses – Australia have exploited a technical failing that may end Shaw’s series after one match – but under lights the loss of one wicket was acceptable damage.9.15pm: Time for neutral umpires to be back?Here’s Nagraj:
On TV, Shane Warne has not spared Bruce Oxenford for a couple decisions the Australian on-field umpire has made so far this Test. The first one came during Indian innings when Oxenford signaled a short run when replays clearly indicated Virat Kohli’s bat had actually crossed the crease line. Today Oxenford ruled Nathan Lyon lbw despite there being a thick inside edge.
Warne, who sits on the MCC World Cricket Committee, was blunt in saying on air he felt Oxenford cannot officiate if he made such mistakes. However, the more subjective issue at hand for the ICC to discuss is whether neutral umpires should return to Test matches during the pandemic.
One of the interim rules that the ICC has tweaked during the pandemic is to allow home umpires to stand in home engagements. That is the reason Oxenford has been standing this Test along with fellow Australian Paul Reiffel. Incidentally Reiffel had reversed one of his decisions on Friday when he ruled Marnus Labuschagne caught behind when there was no nick.
Recently West Indies white-ball captain Kieron Pollard admitted he was not pleased with the umpiring during the T20 series in New Zealand. Pollard’s team-mate Jason Holder, the West Indies’ Test captain, said if players were making the by staying in quarantine he did not see why the neutral umpires could not do the same.
8.45pm: Captain’s inningsTim Paine counter-attacks•Getty Images
Could this be one of Tim Paine’s more important innings? He has brought up a terrific half-century and has so more proactivity than a lot of Australia’s batsmen today. He has been able to bring the deficit down to under 100. Could Australia’s best chance be to actually have a bowl this evening under the lights? They’ll want to narrow the difference first, though.8.00pm: Yadav adds to Australia’s woesIndia are well and truly into Australia’s lower-order now with Umesh Yadav having trapped Marnus Labuschagne lbw early in the final session. Labuschagne forlornly reviewed but knew his fate as the ball skidded into his pads. It has been a true team effort from the India bowlers. And that was followed in the same over when Yadav bounced out Pat Cummins – some of his own medicine – leaving Australia in tatters as the lights start to take hold.Here’s Nagraj:
Yadav was the second-best bowler in the only day-night Test India played before this one, one wicket behind Ishant’s match haul of nine against Bangladesh. He has always been recognised as the fourth seamer in the Indian pace attack. I was speaking with Ishant earlier this week and he said Yadav was ready replacement for him. Key for him has always been pace and ability to reverse.
In a recent Cricket Monthly interview, Jason Gillespie said: “I’m a big fan of Umesh Yadav – he has that pace and aggression. So I tend to think that’s the way India will go. No disrespect to the other guys, but [India] will go with Yadav’s experience. And, yes, he can sometimes go for runs, but you want to encourage him to bowl fast. That’s really important.”
7.10pm: Interval – Australia 92 for 5How good is India’s 244 looking now? A terrific session for them, and especially R Ashwin, has Australia under huge presser. Ashwin made it three wickets when he removed debutant Cameron Green when he pulled to midwicket. Marnus Labuschagne remains Australia’s best hope of parity having ridden his luck in a somewhat skittish innings. Overall, the home side have struggled to keep the scoreboard ticking with the run rate sitting under two across 48 overs. India will now be able to attack Australia as the lights take hold in the last session.Ricky Ponting on Channel Seven: “Batsmen have looked to be quite aggressive against Ashwin. I think they’ve just underestimated Ashwin and how good he is. They’ve looked to score their runs from him and it’s been their undoing.”Here’s a stat nugget from Shiva Jayaraman
This has been a very uncharacteristic batting performance by Australia so far. They have scored at 1.81 runs an over, which, at present is the second slowest scoring rate they have managed in a Test innings of any significant length in the last 30 years. It must be an unfamiliar sight for the Australian fans – so used to seeing their team dominate the opposition in the first match of the summer – with their team on the back foot as early as this. Australia’s fifth wicket fell at 79 in this innings – the second lowest score at which they have been five down in the first innings of a Test series at home in the last 30 years. They were five down for 78 in the Perth Test against Pakistan in 2004-05, which is the lowest.
6.30pm: India take controlVirat Kohli leaps high while R Ashwin is all smiles after a key strike•Getty Images
Anyone else getting flashbacks to 2018? India made 250 on that occasion and then chipped out Australia (they were 87 for 4 at one stage). Ashwin has continued his superb spell by having Travis Head caught and bowl. So it’s over to Cameron Green. No pressure.Here’s a reminder of that Test two years ago.5.55pm: Ashwin’s huge blowIndia should have removed Marnus Labuschagne, they nearly ran out Steven Smith but then they got the breakthrough. R Ashwin, in his first over of the series, found the edge of Smith’s bat. Here’s how Karthik Krishnaswamy called it.
Ashwin to Smith, OUT Got him, Ashwin has struck with an absolute beauty! He got Smith like this in Dharamsala in 2017, but that was from around the wicket. I don’t know if this was meant to go on straight or if it was just natural variation, but he plays back to a length ball just outside off, and it skids through quick, takes the outside edge of his defensive bat, and straight into Ajinkya Rahane’s lap at slip. Almost seemed to leave Smith off the pitch, kind of like the Mohammad Nabi arm ball
5.30pm: Labuschagne’s charmed lifeCheteshwar Pujara and Wriddhiman Saha dive unsuccessfully for a catch•Cricket Australia via Getty Images
14.4 Bumrah to Labuschagne, FOUR, between slip and keeper! Another edge dies on the cordon. Saha lunging desperately to his right and forward, one-handed, but that evades him. A good length ball in the corridor, straightening as Labuschagne offers a dead bat. Edge barely stays in the air17.6 Mohammed Shami to Labuschagne, FOUR, Bumrah drops a sitter! Very conscious of the boundary padding behind him, probably not aware of how much room he had. Because he’s jumped up running to his right from fine leg where a jump wasn’t required. This was straight into his pouch, stomach height and floating nicely. Labuschagne took on the bouncer from middle stump and got a top edge. Bumrah’s a couple of yards in, but he leaps off the ground as that arrives as if it’s a close call. Let down by his awareness22.4 Bumrah to Labuschagne, 1 run, goes short now, and now it’s Prithvi Shaw’s turn to drop Labuschagne. Gets up to about chest height just outside off, and maybe it skids on quicker than the batsman expects. Plays a weird, half-hearted, checked pull, and miscues it high over the square leg region, where Shaw, running a short distance backwards and to his left, puts it down22.6 Bumrah to Smith, no run, how many bowlers beat Smith and find his edge the next ball? Similar delivery, just short of a length outside off, and Smith, shuffling across, pushes out in defence and edges it as it straightens off the deck. Falls short of second slip, Kohli, diving across first slip5.00pm: What about Bumrah’s drop?Here’s some more from Sid:
There has always been – and always will be – debate around how has T20 affected Test cricket. Higher scoring rates – and the risk involved with it – have sped up Tests, but then there are other changes too. Running between the wickets has changed completely; batsmen believe quick singles upset bowlers’ rhythm, but we saw India paid a heavy price with that run-out and not before there had been two close calls earlier in the day.
Then again we saw a bewitching knuckle ball by Josh Hazlewood to nearly get the wicket of a set Virat Kohli when the ball wasn’t doing much. It is hard to imagine Hazlewood would have learnt that ball without playing T20 cricket.
And today we saw Jasprit Bumrah’s fielding effort at the fence. Don’t get me wrong, the bigger issue here was that he misjudged where he was, and these kind of errors can happen, but watch the replays again and again as you will see he wasn’t trying to catch the ball. He had made up his mind – because he had misjudged his position vis-à-vis the rope – that the best he could do was keep the ball in play before going over the rope and keep a six down to two runs. You didn’t see this kind of fielding before T20. That is because in T20, the value of a wicket vis-à-vis runs is not as high as in other formats. So you prioritise saving runs just as much as the catch.
As it turned out, here Bumrah was well inside the fence, and in the end the dropped ball actually bounced inside the field of play. The predicted reaction of elite players will be: yes, I made a judgement error, and I will train and practise more to not repeat it. However, a pause and a bigger question might be worth pondering: wouldn’t you be actually better placed if you didn’t lose sight of the more significant thing, the wickets, while trying to what some might call cute things like quick singles and runs saved at the boundary?
4.30pm: Interval – Australia 35 for 2It may have taken a few overs, but India have their inroads into Australia’s top order having earned lbws against Matthew Wade and the struggling Joe Burns. Both wickets went to Jasprit Bumrah, the first when he trapped Wade from round the wicket – the ball comfortably taking the top of the stumps although on umpire’s call – then Burns was pinned by a full delivery. Burns’ dismissal was very similar to the second innings of the last warm-up match at the SCG when Mohammed Shami did him with the full after he had fiddled with his guard. On this occasion it was clipping leg stump to uphold the on-field decision – such things go against the out-of-form player. This next pair, Marnus Labuschagne and Steven Smith, could hold the key to Australia’s first innings. Perhaps crucially, Labuschagne has been given two lives, on 0 and 12 – the first was a tough chance to Saha and the second when Bumrah made a mess of taking a top-edged hook at long leg.And here’s Sid Monga
These are old numbers – dating to end of 2018 – but I don’t want to bother the wizard Shiva Jayaraman for a fresh complicated query to make a point I am sure you will agree with. So I had a feeling Bumrah always bowled better if India had batted first, and made considerable improvement from the first spell to the second even when India were bowling first. His average in first spells at that time was 40.33 and strike rate 80. In second spells he averaged 24.56 and took a wicket every 57.33 balls. And it just kept improving over each subsequent spell. No other Indian bowler exhibited such a pattern.
Even today, as was shown on TV, India bowled just one ball in the first eight overs that would have ended up at the stumps. Four of those overs were bowled by Bumrah. By the time he came back for his second spell, though, Bumrah had worked out the line and length to bowl. He was fuller and straighter, and his second spell already has two lbws, figures reading 3-2-4-2.
3.55pm: Australia’s openers given helping handJoe Burns and Matthew Wade got through the early new-ball exchanges although were helped somewhat by Jasprit Bumrah and Umesh Yadav bowling too short and not targeting the stumps enough. Only one delivery in the first nine overs would have hit the timber. It took into the fifth over until Australia had runs on the board, a strong back-foot punch by Wade, and Burns had to wait for his 14th ball to get off the mark. Burns also took a blow on the chest from a well-directed bouncer from Bumrah.3.10pm: A first for WadeSo here comes Australia’s new opening pair. A horribly out-of-form Joe Burns (62 runs in nine innings) and Matthew Wade who has never done the job in first-class cricket. It’s a chance for India to get Marnus Labuschagne and Steve Smith in while the ball is hard.”I’m not going to turn into an opener overnight, I know that,” Wade said yesterday. “Who knows if it’s going to be for one or two Tests, I’m not 100 per cent sure. But I’ll give it a good crack. I’m lucky that I’ve batted at Bellerive [Oval], which is a bowler-friendly wicket, for the last three years, so I’m confident I can play the ball late enough for the brand new ball.”3.00pm: India collapsePat Cummins celebrates after an early wicket on the second morning•Getty Images
That was a shocking start from India. Having had hopes of 300 they have been bundled out for 244, losing four wickets today for 11 and their last seven for 56 overall from the moment of Kohli’s run out. Mitchell Starc has moved into the top-ten Test wicket-takers for Australia, now level with Richie Benaud on 248. India have a good bowling attack themselves, but they will need to be at their best to keep their team in the game – although it is worth noting they made 250 in their first innings two years ago and went onto win.2.35pm: The first over againWell, that talk of lower-order runs hasn’t started to well. Pat Cummins produced a beauty to find R Ashwin’s edge as, like yesterday, Australia struck in the opening over of the day. And in the next over, Wriddhiman Saha had a wild drive at Mitchell Starc to give Tim Paine another catch. Even 250 is a way off now for India.Here’s Sid:
One of the big differences between the two attacks on India’s last tour of Australia was Australia’s inability to attack the stumps with the old ball. Apart from managing more movement with the older ball, India also attacked the stumps more, which showed in how they got 25 bowled or lbw dismissals to Australia’s nine. As early as day one of this series, you could see Australia had made an adjustment. In just one day, they had four bowled or lbw dismissals. And how is this for a stat? When Hazlewood trapped Vihari lbw, Australia already had more lbw dismissals in one day than they had all series last time around.
2.20pm: Importance of the tailHere’s Sid Monga for the first time today:
In the aftermath of the Virat Kohli run-out, it was easy to forget that already R Ashwin and Wriddhiman Saha have already added a crucial 27 runs for the seventh wicket. As Cheteshwar Pujara said yesterday, lower-order runs are going to be crucial in a closely fought series. When Australia played in India last, it was India’s lower order, led by Ravindra Jadeja, Saha and Ashwin, that provided the crucial runs. That India could do so almost every game was because India’s tail was used to those conditions and also the Australian attack didn’t have the depth to keep up that intensity for long enough to bowl India out. Quite often, the lower-order runs go with the home team so this is one win India badly want.On paper, Ashwin is carrying some ordinary form, Saha is the lesser batsman than Rishabh Pant, and the last three are not quite accomplished. They don’t want a repeat of what happened in New Zealand. India’s last five batted four times and added just 195 while New Zealand’s last five racked up 243 in just two attempts.
2.10pm: Australia’s bowling class2:32
Moody: Cummins’ relentlessness was second to none
1.35pm: Covid concernsCricket Australia is on alert after the Covid-19 cluster in Sydney’s northern beaches continued to grow. Border restrictions around Australia are being tightened although, as yet, there’s no direct impact on the series. However, the prospects for the SCG Test do not look great. Dan has this update:
Victoria’s state government has announced a permit system for NSW visitors to the south, while at the same time advising their own residents not to visit Sydney for the time being.This much is vital for the injured David Warner who remains in Sydney with his family while he recovers from a groin strain with a view to playing in Melbourne on Boxing Day. CA is understood to have remained in constant dialogue with the Melbourne Cricket Club around ensuring a pitch is ready for playing back-to-back Tests at the MCG in the event of Sydney’s outbreak growing further.
1.30pm: Catch upIt was a terrific start to the Test series with a closely fought opening day as Australia held the honours at the close thanks to incisions under the lights with the new ball (and run out between Ajinkya Rahane and Virat Kohli). However, if India can get themselves to 300 they will feel in the game as this surface has a bit in it for the quicks and the spinners.Here’s Dan Brettig on how Australia were rewarded for keeping the game under control when wickets weren’t coming.