- Australia claim series lead with eight-wicket win over India
- Josh Hazlewood takes 5-8 as tourists post Test-low score of 36
And here’s the match report after a gobsmacking day of cricket in Adelaide.
Related: India slump to new low as Australia cruise to victory in first Test
Welcome back, Joe Burns. He’s had a torrid time of it lately, but fought his way into the match today and eventually got his milestone reward with the last shot of the match. Some luck, some humour, some poetic justice.
Australia produce an extraordinary win.
21st over: Australia 93-2 (Burns 51, Smith 1) Umesh the bowler, and Smith whips him for a single, which gives Burns the strike but makes the half-century equation a bit trickier. Burns gets width from Umesh, and steer him over the cordon for four! Three to win. He’s on 45. So he could hit a six, or he could take a two and then hit a boundary. Or keep the strike with a single and win it with a four next over. Stabs away a couple of dot balls at the body. Last ball of the over.
AND HE HOOKS IT FOR SIX!
20th over: Australia 82-2 (Burns 41, Smith 0) So the match will probably end with Steve Smith in the middle. Burns could almost get a half-century if Smith plays ball. Eight to win.
Glory shot! He wants to get this game done, so he comes down the track to Ashwin and aims over midwicket, but doesn’t get anywhere near the pitch, and instead slices it very high to mid-on. Agarwal spends more than enough time under the ball to think about dropping it, but hangs on.
19th over: Australia 77-1 (Burns 36, Labuschagne 6) The runs start to flow from Umesh. A couple of singles, a couple of twos, a frustrated bouncer.
13 to win.
18th over: Australia 71-1 (Burns 35, Labuschagne 1) So a new batsman for Australia. They have the drinks break as well. Labuschagne almost pops up a catch to short leg when he comes in. Advances, gets tangled, the ball loops up high from his thigh pad, and short leg loses it and can’t spot it. I’m not sure if there was a nick on it. He gets a run next ball, knocked to leg.
Gervase Green emails in. “Just quietly (won’t tell anyone). Have they been a good sport about all this and already given Scott Heinrich the night off? Or have the Grinches at the Graun kept him in stand-by in case, in case...?”
India will get one, at least. A strange way to do it. Wade sweeps Ashwin and thinks that he’s got through the man at short leg. Instead the ball hits him again, this time on his shin guard, and ricochets back towards the keeper. Wade is already setting off for a run before realising that he’s in trouble, and Saha pounces on it towards the off side of the pitch and flicks it back, reverse underarm, and hits the stumps. Brilliant keeping.
17th over: Australia 70-0 (Wade 33, Burns 35) Umesh will replace Bumrah. How long will Matthew Wade take to join in the hitting? Starts with a glanced single instead. Burns wants to keep going. He pulls Umesh, a big top edge this time that swirls over square leg, who can’t get back fast enough to attempt a catch. Two more runs. Glances another wide of fine leg, two again. Then gets square up and edges through the cordon for two. He’s got more braces than Lisa Simpson.
16th over: Australia 63-0 (Wade 32, Burns 29) Ashwin to Burns, with a leg slip, a bat-pad, and a conventional slip, and Burns plays his best shot of the day! Uses his feet, reaches the pitch, and on-drives down the ground for four. That was a quality stroke. Time for the mercy rule, finish this game off. Burns wants to, jabbing the next to the fielder at backward square, then sauntering down again to loft this time, an on-drive again, for four more! Hello, Joe.
Australia are 27 runs from victory.
15th over: Australia 55-0 (Wade 32, Burns 21) A little drive down the ground for Burns that hits the other stumps and gets him a single. Wade evades the rest from Bumrah, round the wicket from the Cathedral End. This innings will have done Burns a world of good already. Just getting a few decent shots away. You wouldn’t say he looks fluent or confident, but he’s there.
14th over: Australia 54-0 (Wade 32, Burns 20) Wade launches into a pull shot against Ashwin, and he hits Vihari at short leg. That hurts. Vihari was turning away from the ball and so he gets hit high on his shoulder, but it was absolutely middled into him from a couple of yards away. He takes some treatment and a few minutes to recover.
13th over: Australia 53-0 (Wade 32, Burns 19) Bumrah continuing, Wade does the tip-and-run thing again, Burns pulls out another big pull shot but this time finds long leg for a single.
12th over: Australia 51-0 (Wade 31, Burns 18) Ashwin around the wicket to the left-handed Wade, angling the ball into him, giving it a lot of flight except when he sees Wade’s feet start to advance and spears the ball through. Draws a nick from the next ball, but it costs him a run behind point. Burns dead-bats the rest.
11th over: Australia 50-0 (Wade 30, Burns 18) Bumrah from the Cathedral End. So the Umesh over was just to swing Bumrah around. India’s two trumps with the ball. Bright sunshine persists here in Adelaide, as a jumbo flies over the ground on its way in to land. You can actually see the cricket if you’re on the port side of the place on certain approaches to the airport, which is out along Donald Bradman Drive. Wade gets a single off the pad, Burns takes a couple in similar fashion. Bumrah is still bowling an excellent line most of the time, testing Burns around the off stump, and eventually cuts a ball into him that hits him on the pad. India send the appeal upstairs for a DRS exam, but there’s a little inside edge on Hot Spot. Probably would have been hitting. Not much going India’s way.
10th over: Australia 47-0 (Wade 29, Burns 16) Ashwin comes on with his off-breaks, the last hope of some kind of miracle for India. Bowls a maiden to Burns to start with, Burns trying to stretch a long way forward in defence.
9th over: Australia 47-0 (Wade 29, Burns 16) Wade looking like the one to finish off this match. He leg-glances four from Umesh, then carves away another square drive for the same.
8th over: Australia 39-0 (Wade 21, Burns 16)Again Burns climbs into a cross-bat shot! Against Bumrah this time, a sharper bouncer, and a better stroke, Burns hooking really out through backward square and strikes it well. This comes after he fended into that gap at gully for yet another close call. Bumrah bowls a no-ball on the sixth attempt, and his do-over costs him two more runs via a misfield at cover as Burns drives.
7th over: Australia 29-0 (Wade 20, Burns 8) They keep finding that gap near gully. Wade this time, on the bounce for a three, having already whipped Umesh for a couple through square. Having taken strike with one ball left in the over, Burns pulls it for four! That’s more like it. Didn’t nail it, but at least went after it, and gets enough on it to reach the rope.
Colum Fordham gives an update from Naples. “Was in a state of semi-slumber, it being early here. Was looking forward to seeing Kohli take on the Aussie attack in his enigmatically elegant manner later this morning but thought I’d just check on proceedings. I let out a shriek and woke my wife who wondered what on earth the matter was. “The cricket”, I said. “Dormi, go back to sleep,” she replied. Just hope Bumrah and Ashwin can perform a miracle so I will nod off again and hope I was just having a nightmare.”
6th over: Australia 20-0 (Wade 15, Burns 4) Bumrah with the ball, and Wade gets moving immediately, a forward push that lets him belt through for a single. Burns has to face, and still doesn’t look comfortable doing so. His defensive pushes are skewing the ball away more than firmly stopping it.
Then Burns hits a boundary! Let the angels sing. Uses Bumrah’s line outside the off stump, opens the face, guides the ball into the slip-gully gap. Nicely done.
The players are resuming the field. Burns has spent the last 40 minutes on the laughing gas, Wade has done some Fireball shots, and the Indian squad has had a mass dose of Lexapro. We’re good to go.
Mann writes in. “Geoff, I have never followed an OBO which wasn’t involving England before, but I like your more descriptive blurbs and thought I’d dip in for 5 minutes, ended up glued to this improbable and amazing collapse. One time… maybe I’ll dip in again for the next 300+ not out.”
A convert! Welcome, stranger. We have fun here on the Australian cricket.
And needing 75 more runs to win. If you want to know what happened this morning... scroll down. Too much to summarise, but perversely it won’t take you long to read it. I’m going for a lie down.
5th over: Australia 15-0 (Wade 14, Burns 0) The umpires get into position before 16:30 local time, so there will be another over before the break, even though there’s then a long delay of about four minutes while Burns gets medical treatment. He gets the arm bandaged, for what good that will do. A bit like getting his mum to put a Flinstones band-aid on it, maybe. Sufficiently cared for, he faces up to Umesh and blocks out a couple of balls. Wade leans on his bat at the other end in classic style. Burns gets thunked on the pad, but outside the line. Wade stirs into action and nearly runs himself out off the last ball, coming a long way down and being sent back, but he makes it. Burns is in serious pain, and the last thing he was thinking about on the last ball before the break was bolting a single.
4th over: Australia 15-0 (Wade 14, Burns 0) Bumrah bowls and hits Burns! On the elbow. That was an extremely awkward way to play the ball. Or really, Burns didn’t play the ball at all. There was one in the first innings that he seemed to lose sight of and it hit him on the shoulder. This one similarly, he was raising his bat as if to shoulder arms, then saw the length, then froze rather than ducking, and got smashed near the point of his elbow with his arms raised around shoulder level. The ball ricochets for an extra, and Burns takes a while to settle at the far end, in some discomfort.
Bumrah comes around the wicket to the left-handed Wade, who punches two runs into the gap at cover. He’s outscored all of India’s batsmen with those two runs. Ducks a bouncer next ball, then guides a ball on the bounce towards the cordon, and hits a gap to pick up four more runs.
3rd over: Australia 8-0 (Wade 8, Burns 0) Burns just wants to be there, Wade wants to make it happen. Front foot, strides in, big cover drive for four from Umesh. A couple of boundaries and 10 percent of the total has already been knocked off.
2nd over: Australia 4-0 (Wade 4, Burns 0) Bumrah the other opener, and starts with a brilliant ball to Burns! Cuts him in half, searing through his defence from back of a length, somehow misses the edge and clips his pocket going through to Saha behind the stumps. They appeal excitedly but the umpire makes the right call there. A couple of early wickets would make this day extremely interesting.
1st over: Australia 4-0 (Wade 4, Burns 0) That score means 4 runs, 0 wickets, which I probably have to clarify after what we’ve just seen. Umesh gets the ball to start with, and Wade is a bit more upbeat than the first innings, carving a boundary through backward point.
I’ve never seen an innings where every batsman got single figures before. There’s usually one: Joe Denly’s 12 at Headingley, Mitchell Johnson’s 13 at Trent Bridge. I remember looking through a lot of old scorecards during that Headingley Test and there was always a player who made a dozen or so. Not today:
Shaw 4
Agarwal 9
Bumrah 2
Pujara 0
Kohli 4
Rahane 0
Vihari 8
Saha 4
Ashwin 0
Umesh 4*
Shami 1 retired
Australia will be batting within the first session. We have 22 minutes from now until the meal break. The ABC broadcast was worried about their coverage with Ian Chappell forced into isolation after the Sydney covid outbreak, but there’s no worry about being overworked now.
I’m a bit shellshocked by that. Seen a few wild collapses but that one is the wildest. It was a lively wicket and the ball was doing a lot, but it was fine quality fast bowling that made that movement happen. Only three bowlers in the innings, Hazlewood 5 for 8, Cummins 4 for 21, and how would you like to be Mitchell Starc, opening bowler in an innings where a team made 36 and you didn’t get a wicket? None for 7 from his half dozen overs.
Trevor Tutu writes in “from a sunny but breezy Cape Town. I thought to take a quick look at the score before setting out for my morning stroll, and did a double take. With the score at 19 for 6 the walk is going to take me only as far as the television in the sitting room, so I can see what on earth is going on, as I can’t believe my eyes. Can I blame you for my lost exercise?”
Trevor, we’re here to help you by being blamed for whatever you need.
It’s over! Shami can’t hold the bat. Which means that this innings counts as being bowled out. India’s lowest ever total in Test cricket, which before today was 42.
Absolutely extraordinary scenes. And India are probably down a bowler for their attempted defence as well.
Shami goes back to bat and then stops again, gets the doctors out again. The umpires come over. If he can’t continue, the innings is over, there’s no chance for him to get off the field and get patched up. They’ll have to make a call one way or the other.
He backs away from a Cummins short ball, trying to heave to the leg side, but Cummins follows him, and the ball ends up hitting him on the wrist as he tries to pull. He’s in some serious pain and getting a long session with the medical staff, though it looks like he’ll try to carry on.
21st over: India 36-9 (Umesh 4, Shami 1) Any day that you’re relying on Mohammed Shami with the bat is a bad day. He looks better than most though, calmly knocking Hazlewood away for a single to midwicket. Hazlewood goes for a bouncer, and Umesh goes for it too – hooking away over Paine via a top edge.
Hazlewood has five overs, 5 for 8.
@GeoffLemonSport Woke up early for this after late-night covid shift at the ICU. After this collapse, feel like I should have stayed with the covid.
Awoooooooooooo. Aaaawooooooo.
Wolf noises.
20th over: India 31-8 (Vihari 8, Umesh 0) Cummins bowls, and there’s a boundary for Vihari! That’s against the tide. A nicely played cut shot, really laid into it. That takes India past the lowest score by any team in Tests, and honour that still lies with New Zealand’s 26.
19th over: India 26-8 (Vihari 3, Umesh 0) Who was expecting this Test match to be over in the first session? Hazlewood brings up the field for his hat-trick ball: a fourth slip, a short leg, Wade at cover coming in close to catch. No dice though: Umesh keeps the ball out of his pads, just!
Hazlewood is on a hat-trick! That length again, that kick, Ashwin tries to defend, pushes at the ball, has his edge clipped. A tiny nick, so he reviews the umpire’s dismissal, but while the Hot Spot camera shows nothing, the Snicko picks up a tiny spike. India’s lowest Test score is on.
WHAT IS HAPPENING. TURN THE WORLD OFF. Now the drinks break takes a wicket. This the most comfortable of the lot. Hazlewood bowls at the pads, Saha flicks it away, middle of the bat, nicely struck but airborne, and there’s a midwicket in position to take the catch.
18th over: India 26-6 (Vihari 3, Saha 4) A positive move from Vihari, getting onto the front foot and punching two runs through the covers. The grass on the outfield is probably a bit longer than most grounds to help protect the ball, so the shot slows up. Better to see Vihari playing shots like that than going completely into his shell. That’s the drinks break.
17th over: India 24-6 (Vihari 1, Saha 4) Hazlewood to Vihari, who manages to get off the mark with a little push wide of mid-on. Saha leaves and blocks, then takes a ball off his pads for two. That’s the first over since Bumrah got out when it didn’t feel like a wicket was coming every ball. But Cummins is still going from the other end, so hold that thought.
16th over: India 21-6 (Vihari 0, Saha 2) Pat Cummins, what a bowler. Another beauty, on that relentless line that he hits around the off stump. Sizzles past Saha’s edge. The next ball Saha tries to leave, and it strikes the face of his bat in its backlift and somehow deflects past leg stump for two runs. Which brings Saha back onto strike, ready to be squared up by the next one past the edge! He’s getting out this over, by the looks. Two balls to go. Plays a proper leave to one, on height, which goes over his stumps. Then just squeezes the last one out of his pads in front of the wicket!
Cummins has 150 Test wickets now, by the by.
15th over: India 19-6 (Vihari 0, Saha 0) The hesitation is palpable. Vihari plays out a maiden from Hazlewood, and defends well enough, but plays every ball like it’s a grenade.
14th over: India 19-6 (Vihari 0, Saha 0) Wriddiman Saha started the day yesterday with the bat after being not out overnight. Who could have guessed that he’d be out here this early on the third day as well? He survives two balls from Cummins, who now has figures of 4 for 12.
India’s lowest Test score all out is 42, at Lord’s in 1974.
Three day Test match coming up! Kohli is gone. Cummins has set this game alight. First Kohli plays a clever steer, into the ground and through the cordon for four. But the next ball he flashes a drive and Green takes a diving catch! Long way to his right, and he nearly drops it but the fumbled ball rolls up his forearm and he manages to drap it between his arm and chest. Gets lucky, but gets Kohli.
Extraordinary!
13th over: India 15-5 (Kohli 0, Vihari 0) The move from Paine... Starc only bowled three overs to start the day, then perhaps all the bounce that Cummins was getting made Paine want to give Hazlewood a go. It returned value in spades. Two wickets in the over. India still have a pretty handy pair at the crease, in Kohli and Vihari, but they have a massive job to survive this.
Four wickets for none in the last few overs.
This is like Headingley 2019. The second day, not the fourth. Hazlewood two in the over! Bowls at the stumps, decks away a bit, Rahane tries a defensive drive down the pitch and gets a thick low edge. What is happening?
Another one goes! Three wickets without a run scored! Is this... Australia in the UAE? No, it’s India at Adelaide. The introduction of Josh Hazlewood pays dividends first ball, as he bowls just outside off, moving in at Agarwal’s body, kicking off a length, and taking the outside edge of a flustered attempt at defence. Paine takes another catch. Australia on fire!
12th over: India 15-3 (Agarwal 9, Kohli 0) Gracious. India’s king of defence gone for a duck. The captain arriving. The score looks worse than it is due to the nightwatchman’s wicket, but 15-2 would be pretty worrisome for India even so. Kohli is on his toes against Cummins, shuffling across the stumps, playing inside the line of another beauty that rockets into Paine’s gloves from a length. Then plays to short leg on the bounce. Cummins ends the over with 3 for 8!
That’s huge! Cummins gets the wicket with a pearler, a ball that seams away at pace and off an awkward length. The length draws Pujara further forward than he likes to play, making him push in front of his pad at the ball, and the movement does the rest. What a big moment for Australia. Kohli to the crease! The lead is 68.
11th over: India 15-2 (Agarwal 9, Pujara 0) Starc to Agarwal, another maiden as the batsman is watchful. Gets squared up by a beauty from the final ball, as it leaps from the surface and past the skewed edge of the bat as Agarwal tries to get inside the line.
“Intrigued by Aussie slow scoring yesterday!” writes Gangesh Vadakeyil. Was it a strategy, striving to wear the bowlers down? A case of diffidence, unable to tame Indian bowling? Or the pitch adverse to stroke play? Hard to imagine that the Aussies are defensive players!”
10th over: India 15-2 (Agarwal 9, Pujara 0) Now the first drop who is batting at No4 will enter the game, and he starts off by doing Pujara things. The Cummins bumper to him is casually evaded with a lean. A good ball that cuts in off the seam is defended to the ground, so late does Pujara play and with such minimal backlift. The over, you will be stunned to learn, is a maiden.
9th over: India 15-2 (Agarwal 9, Pujara 0) So the real business of the day begins. Pujara to the crease, and much of India’s fortunes could rest on whether he can stay there for a couple of hours to help them build around him, or whether the Australians can dislodge his stubborn self in faster time. He’s at the non-striker’s end for the time being, as Agarwal ignores a series of offerings from Starc outside his off stump.
Three slips, gully, point, nobody at cover, mid-off, mid-on, midwicket, long leg. We’ll soon see whether they go with the leg-slip trap for Pujara, but Agarwal has a very conventional field. That makes sense given Starc’s line in this over, which has Agarwal playing a few times straight to the men in front of square on the off side.
8th over: India 15-2 (Agarwal 9) The bowling partner for M. Starc will be one Patricio Cummins, with the glossy mane and the high gait. He gets the opportunity to bowl to Bumrah, but Bumrah immediately turns that into runs! Two of them, a deliberate shot behind point, holding the bat to the line and deflecting the ball away. Not only scores but chooses to maintain the strike. Feeling confident! Defends two balls in a row, solidly on the front foot, to which Cummins responds with a bouncer to make him doubt that approach, and Bumrah is sharp enough to yank his body away from the line. But the bouncer does its job, because Bumrah is hesitant to get forward to the last ball of the over, which is full, so he plays it while leaning his weight back, and lifts the defensive shot back at the bowler. Simple catch. A demo of cause and effect.
7th over: India 13-1 (Agarwal 9, Bumrah 0) Starc bowls the first over of the day from the River End. Luckily for India, Agarwal is on strike. Bumrah gets a few minutes to take some deep breaths at the non-striker’s end. And to avoid Starc, who is immediately on the money, swinging a ball into the right-hander’s pads and only avoiding a raucous lbw shout courtesy of a smaller portion of bat being injected into the mix. Starc bowls outside off and Agarwal gets loose, spooning his bat at the line but missing, then it’s Starc’s turn to get loose as he bowls outside leg stump, and Agarwal comfortably flicks it square for four. Very wide from Starc gets left alone, twice in a row to finish off the opening exchanges.
Alright. Let’s do some cricketball.
Vasu Charey agrees with me about Ashwin, and adds a nomination of his own.
“Often there are moments to which we look back upon as being the defining ones of a game, or even a series. If this series turns out to be something special, from an Indian perspective, there are two moments I would attribute it to. Ashwin’s arm ball to Smith, and Bumrah’s 0* (11). Those might well be the most important eleven balls he has, or will have, negotiated. Looking forward to today’s play.”
“I like the Hindi,” writes Eamonn Warner, “but surely if you’re to be our oboist, cello would be more apt.”
Duet with me.
Antipodean Nomenclatural Variation and Ingenuity: A Study. This will be the title of my thesis.
Painey Wadey Heady Starcy Burnsy Greeny Marnie Smithy Patty Lyno Hoff
It’s a gorgeous day in Adelaide, if you’re wondering. Low 20s, sunshine, will be mild all day and cool tonight. Batting will still be tricky given the surface but it’s probably the best time for it.
Let’s talk for a moment about R Ashwin. Visiting spinners don’t have an easy time in Australia. Off-spinners don’t have an easy time in Australia. Visiting off-spinners are at the centre of that bad-time vortex. Many have visited, few have prospered, and barely any have left with their reputations enhanced. It’s a country in which spinners are so often called upon to do a holding job with nothing more on offer, and their bowling averages and strike rates blow out accordingly. There is a reason that Nathan Lyon is so highly rated even with an average in the low 30s.
Yet Ashwin was the decisive player yesterday. He took 4 for 55, and he started that with the wicket of Steve Smith. The fast bowlers were excellent but weren’t backed up in the field, and couldn’t further than the first two Australian wickets for a long time. Then Ashwin outfoxed Smith and the middle order fell in a rush. This is what changed the game in India’s favour. Ashwin will bowl last in this match, and a series in which he is ready to be a substantial force can only become more engrossing for it.
Really enjoying everyone’s emails and Twitter missives, do keep them coming so that we have some company through the day. My email is in the sidebar box, as is my birdmail. I’m Geoff, I’ll be your oboist for the day. Until the drinks break in the middle session. Challo!
What a Test match we have. It’s always my preference to have the bowlers on top, as it makes runs more valuable and tends to make the contest closer. Adelaide has consistently been the most sporting wicket in Australia since it switched to day-night matches and the new drop-in pitches, and this year the dial was turned up a bit more with a couple more millimetres of grass on the pitch. Cricket is a game of millimetres, after all.
To recap: 21 wickets have fallen in the first two days, sending us headlong into the third innings. (A few correspondents have quite fairly pointed out that when a Test in India proceeds at this pace, voices overseas decry the quality of the surface.)
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