The coliseum is ready for another day’s action. Not sure about the likely audience for today though. Last time India toured, the second-day Melbourne crowd was over 50,000. Yesterday it was officially 36,000. Which is still a lot in smaller grounds, but in the MCG those kind of numbers disappear. The visible seating bowl wasn’t empty, but was poorly filled, and most of the people in attendance were sheltering from the heat in the stadium bars. There are always explanations tendered: weather, holidays, whatever it is, but those have always applied. So there must be a partial factor that the national team has less drawing power than it has at times in the past.
Davis Harrigan 🦁 (@DeadlineDavis)
There aren’t many better sights in the world @MCG #AUSvIND pic.twitter.com/CPE0cEpwNk
Geoff Lemon Sport (@GeoffLemonSport)
Might be big-stadium syndrome but the crowd numbers look sad. Officially 36,000 but it’s as sparse out there as a teenage beard. #AusvInd
One. Two. Three. Here we go. Today Australia will bat to stay in the series on day three at Melbourne. That’s the short of it. The long is that batting to stay in the series should be possible, on a pitch that’s been pretty slow and pretty conducive to digging in for a long occupation. India batted through two days on it and only lost seven wickets, but they found it hard to score any faster than a crawl, given that nearly six sessions only yielded 443 runs.
That was enough to convince Kohli to declare though, and his bowlers had six overs at Australia on the second evening. No wickets, though Marcus Harris was hit in the helmet for the second match running, and there were any number of false shots from both openers.
The Australian bowlers were excellent and stuck at their task, but had little to work with and had four important catches dropped (three of them in one day from poor weary Nathan Lyon). India’s bowlers could get more from the pitch, and should get more from their fielders.
In short, Kohli will be relying on the pitch playing tricks while remaining difficult to score on. It did start to show some occasional inconsistencies on day two, with the occasional ball leaping through while a few more others stayed low. If that gets worse as the game goes on, Australia could find it a lot harder to preserve wickets than India did.
So that’s it. Australia must bat long and large. With a bit of rain forecast the next couple of days, they might lose some time and the draw would become most likely. But a sub-par Australian first innings would give India a huge chance for a 1-2 series lead. Alternatively, a huge Australian first innings over days three and four would set up India as the only possible losers of the match on day five.
Let’s go.