34th over: India 84-6 (Pant 18, Jadeja 0) Josh Hazlewood with the ball replacing Lyon. No Starc as yet, who could be useful with the ball keeping low. Perhaps he’s sore, perhaps Paine wants control ahead of menace. Cummins gives him both. Hazlewood hangs the ball outside Pant’s off stump hoping for something ridiculous, but Pant waits five balls then knocks a single.
33rd over: India 83-6 (Pant 17) Cummins bowling, and this ball is through everyone. Bursts through everyone, serious lift from a fuller length, through the gate, over Agarwal’s stumps, over and wide of Paine down the leg side for four byes. That’s not reassuring for anyone batting after this. Agarwal jams another ball into the gully, staying lower that time. A couple of blocks, the the last ball of the over keeps low again and is through onto the stumps! Agarwal tried to jam down, got the toe of the bat onto it but couldn’t stop it hitting timber.
And Pat Cummins has a five-wicket haul. In trying circumstances, he has 5 for 14 so far.
Monkey Brennan’s tweet, meanwhile, can be stamped as ‘Expired’. Agarwal was only running at around 50% anyway.
32nd over: India 78-5 (Agarwal 42, Pant 16) Lyon drops short, and Pant produces a cut shot to take full toll. Then a single. The lead moves to 370.
On Twitter, Exhibit A is borne out by Exhibit B.
31st over: India 73-5 (Agarwal 42, Pant 11) Loud appeal as Cummins beats the glove down leg side. He had some success that way yesterday, but Agarwal misses a touch. This after a ball that cut in savagely to Agarwal and hit the pad, angling down leg. Another spell from the bowler that makes you marvel at what he can produce, and how he keeps producing it. Agarwal plays out a maiden after the early scares.
30th over: India 73-5 (Agarwal 42, Pant 11) Five in the deep still, but no one at long off. So Agarwal goes that way and lifts Lyon for six. There must be some orders from the Indian camp to get things moving then. No run from the next ball, but the next sees Agarwal shuffle down and play the short-arm jab into the sightscreen for six more. Then turns a single.
Agarwal scored the most runs of any batsman in the match yesterday. He was 28 not out by stumps.
29th over: India 59-5 (Agarwal 29, Pant 10) Cummins to start from the other end. As he should, the Magic Man in this innings. Bowling to Pant, and… he’s dropped! Second ball of the day from Cummins. Big inside edge after the ball cut back at the Indian keeper. The Australian keeper was going the wrong way, and had to try to fling himself back towards the leg side. Got a fingertip to it but the very tough chance goes unclaimed. And concedes a couple of runs.
28th over: India 56-5 (Agarwal 29, Pant 7) Resuming this morning, the opener on debut in Mayank Agarwal, and the feisty wicketkeeper Rishabh Pant. It was exactly such a combination that deflated Australia in Abu Dhabi a few weeks ago after Nathan Lyon crashed through the first five wickets there. Fakhar Zaman on debut and Sarfraz Ahmed put on a massive partnership and took back control of the match there. Mind you, that was on day one, so Pakistan were at risk of losing control. India has no chance of losing control here, even if they lost five for none in the next over.
Lyon concedes a couple of singles, but there are four… five fielders back on the fence. Paine trying to defend and drag the game out rather than trying to bowl India out, it seems.
An email from Scott Lowe. “I know I’m not the first to say this but the batting display yesterday is going to be reason number one why Smith and Warner, and to a lesser extent Bancroft, are going to be welcomed back with open arms. Forget any personal agendas or viewpoints – all of the executives and coaches will want the only two guys averaging over 50 playing ahead of the Ashes.”
Can’t say you’re wrong, even if I can’t say it’s right. Being welcomed back should be contingent on coming clean about every unanswered question, instead of doing weak PR opps with friendly interviewers.
Remember you can email me or hit me up on Twitter if you want to send a question or comment or contribution to the Grand Old OBO. Here’s one from SH:
“Morning greetings, Geoff. I wanted to ask: what did you make of not enforcing the follow-on? With 67 overs in the first innings, surely workload wasn’t an issue. Do India not think they’re capable of knocking twenty back-to-back? Or did they just not want to bat last? Was the forecast a factor? I see nothing wrong with this approach, mind, but I cannot figure out why this team is reluctant to ask others to bat again. Thoughts?”
Pretty simple for me: with 67 overs, workload is absolutely an issue. Sure, the old-timers used to bowl for nine days non-stop. They also mostly bowled off three paces and had rest days during matches and smoked cigarettes at fine leg.
Bumrah, India’s best, had bowled 16 overs by the time Australia was dismissed. Ishant had bowled 13, Shami had bowled 10. Meaning that if you enforce the follow-on, those fast bowlers are immediately into their third or even fourth spells of the day while starting the second innings. It means that if Australia puts together a better batting performance of say, 100 overs, the Indian bowlers end up sending down 160 or 170 overs straight. It’s just not smart to ask them to do that. And if they tire right out, there’s always the chance Australia sneaks out to a lead of 100, then maybe India has to do some ugly batting for a session or two late on day five to avoid losing the Test.
The percentages are far better by not enforcing, putting the lead into impossible territory, then inviting the other team to bat last on a deteriorating pitch for four to six sessions.
Not to mention that both teams have a three-day break leading into the Sydney Test starting on January 3rd, so looking after bowlers is paramount, where a century ago they were often treated more like hired help.
So to conclude the recapping, India declared on 443 for 7 after batting the first two days. Australia subsided rather than collapsing, with all of the top eight facing at least 30 balls, but the highest score was 22 and the total 154. India decided to bat again anyway, and reached 54 for 5 by stumps, but are miles ahead regardless. Now we wait to see what the fourth day brings, and whether Australia’s batsmen can produce something worthwhile at their second chance. You’d think they’ll have to bat at least five sessions whether there’s a declaration or not.
Let’s not forget the other outstanding fast bowling performance from yesterday. Jasprit Bumrah, he of the gentle approach and wind-up bird bowling action. Trots in like he’s circling the bridle yard, then unleashes a Thor arm calling lightning down from the heavens. Serious pace, serious accuracy, preying on Australia’s weaknesses to clean up 6 for 33 on a pitch that on day one everyone thought would yield six wickets total in the match. But his piece de resistance was the slower ball to Shaun Marsh, sixth ball of the over before lunch, after setting him up with five fast balls in the channel just outside off. Five leaves, then a seductive, confusing yorker that hovered in the air and dipped late under the bat. What on earth.
The Cummins spell was something special, especially considering that he’d already shouldered a huge workload in the first innings, then does his part with the bat, and been out bowling again before even really having a chance to put his feet up for five minutes. This is a consistent pattern in the struggling current Australian team, and to get you going for the day, here’s my piece on it.
Day four, and an hour before play the covers were on at the MCG. It’s raining a little bit, but not much, and the forecast was only for a few scattered showers totally 2 millimetres (and for fans of imperial measurements that’s a great time to use them). Rain won’t save Australia, therefore, from a position of 346 runs behind, with India batting in the third innings, and two full days to play. It’s really a matter of when India decide to declare, and for my money I’d say Virat Kohli might do so this morning, a few minutes before play, believing they’ve already got enough with this pitch playing some tricks with consistency of bounce.
That said, Australia will have got a bit of an emotional charge from the spell last night where Pat Cummins blew away India’s main batting. Vihari the makeshift opener was a good start, but then he added Cheteshwar Pujara for a duck, then Kohli and Ajinkya Rahane in consecutive balls. Four wickets in 19 deliveries, and it was a thrill to watch.
Peter Taggart (@petertaggart)
