Australia v India: third Test, day three – live!

Cummins gets him! He’s bowled so well, last night and this morning, and gets reward with his second wicket. He bowls back of a length, Rahane wants to play a little late dab without a cordon of slip catchers waiting for him, but he doesn’t account for the seam movement that Cummins can generate. This ball jags back in sharply, taking the bottom edge of the diagonal bat, very close to Rahane’s body, and down onto the stumps. He left himself nowhere to go playing that shot. The captain is gone, with India still 221 behind.

54th over: India 116-2 (Pujara 12, Rahane 22) Lyon comes back for Starc, the changes keep rolling. Not a bad idea from Paine to give Starc a quick burst and see if he could do something, with Lyon always available to return to. Rahane tries to turn over the strike, flicking firmly towards midwicket but the ball is saved. Then he’s missed at short leg! The shortness being too short in this instance. Lyon gets the classic off-spinner’s zip into the pads, takes an inside edge on the way and loops over Wade’s lid. The fielder leaps up and back, and gets the slightest phantom of a fingertip to it as he cranes back with his arm well behind his body, but he was no chance of keeping it. Rahane decides to assert authority back over the contest, and two balls later comes down to hit down the ground for six. A neat lift of the ball over long-on, contained and controlled. That’s probably the right idea, can’t just keep defending or there’ll be more catching chances.

53rd over: India 110-2 (Pujara 12, Rahane 16) More good stuff from Rahane: flicks a couple of runs off his pads, then hooks another single. Cummins has fine leg and deep backward square on the rope now, the classic bouncer field. Pujara sees out the rest, including a really fierce bouncer that has the crowd getting vocal as Pujara sways away, calm as a monk.

52nd over: India 107-2 (Pujara 12, Rahane 13) Starc in to bowl, back over the wicket, and there’s the first boundary of the day! Lovely from Rahane, he sees the overpitched length angling across him, just outside his off stump, and he’s ready to make use of it. Just leans minimally onto the front foot and eases a cover drive through it, short backlift and short follow-through, but timed and using Starc’s pace to zoom to the boundary. Starc sends a couple of short ones in at Rahane’s armpit in response. But when one gets a touch shorter than those, up to shoulder height, Rahane hooks a single along the ground to long leg. This is excellent batting.

51st over: India 102-2 (Pujara 12, Rahane 8) Cummins in at the pads, and Rahane slants away a single behind square leg. He’s been clever at this so far, Rahane, finding a run here and there to make sure it’s not entirely a defensive exercise. Considering how hard it might become to face Lyon later, it won’t be a big help to block out the quicks without scoring. Pujara sees out the next five balls.

50th over: India 101-2 (Pujara 12, Rahane 7) Now Starc comes around the wicket to angle in at the right-handers. He’s also using the bouncer approach, with a couple of fuller balls thrown in for variety. Pujara though does what Pujara does: waits, watches, endures.

49th over: India 101-2 (Pujara 12, Rahane 7) Cummins now sends down a full over back of a length, in at the body of Rahane. The one proper bouncer that he bowls goes astray, down leg side and easily ducked, but the last ball of the over is nasty at the gloves, and you can see Rahane relax his back-foot defensive push at the last instant to try to make sure that the ball falls softly to ground rather than skewing into the air. It does, after smashing his top hand against the handle, but luckily it hits him flush on the padded part at the front of the fingers and doesn’t seem to have done him any damage. No run.

48th over: India 101-2 (Pujara 12, Rahane 7) Now it’s Mitchell Starc to bowl, left-arm fast. Interesting, in that things already looked tasty for Lyon in the one over he bowled. Starc is similarly bowling with a leg-side field, left-arm over the wicket, with his natural swing into the pads of the right-handers. Rahane takes four balls to size it up and then works him square for a single.

India’s deficit is currently 237 runs with eight wickets in hand.

47th over: India 100-2 (Pujara 12, Rahane 6) Pat Cummins to bowl from the other end, and already Australia have gone with a very leg-side field. One slip in, but there’s a short midwicket and a leg gully and a short leg. Cummins bowls full at the stumps, some threatening deliveries with a bit of shape through the air. Seeing if he can get Pujara to play off the pads in the air, but Pujara bats out a maiden. Pujara did make 193 last time he was here, batting for about two days. It looks like harder work this time around.

46th over: India 100-2 (Pujara 12, Rahane 6) Nathan Lyon will start proceedings for the day, Australia’s off-spinner who Ric was writing about in the previous post. He has plenty of company around the bat: short leg, slip, and a roadblock as Jim Maxwell calls it, at bat-pad on the off side of the pitch. Rahane knocks away a single and then it looks like Pujara has decided that he doesn’t want to be a duck in a shooting gallery today with those catchers waiting: twice he moves away from the line and forces through the off side, first for a brace and then for a single. Raises India’s hundred, and that was much more positive already than the defensive play – the necessary defensive play – of last night.

I mean, the stat is great but the best part is seeing ABC statistician Ric Finlay adopt the usage of “shout-out”.

It was especially interesting yesterday to welcome back Steve Smith to the runs list. It wasn’t like his last year and a bit was terrible – he still made three fifties in eight Tests and averaged 30. For a lot of players that would constitute a career. But by Smith’s standards it was a long stretch. Since his first Test century, the longest gap without one was four matches. Yesterday he made 131, equalling Allan Border with 27 Test hundreds. Border played 156 Tests, Smith is in his 76th.

If you’d care to get into a bit more detail interspersed with a bit less seriousness about the second day, Adam Collins and I went on a giant ferris wheel to talk about it. Why? I don’t have an answer to that.

For the main points of yesterday’s day of play, here’s our wires report.

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