The opening day of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy belonged to Ravindra Jadeja who made a triumphant return to international cricket with his 11th five-wicket haul to help bowl Australia out for 177 in Nagpur on Thursday.
Rohit Sharma led India’s reply with an unbeaten 56 off 69 balls as India reached 77 for one at the close. With the pitch set to deteriorate further, the Indian skipper’s decision to attack Nathan Lyon did pay dividends in the final hour.
The Indians began with a flourish as Pat Cummins perhaps had his worst day with the new ball. He frequently overpitched and strayed on the pads, and Rohit was just ruthless. Scott Boland perhaps provided better control.
KL Rahul, who opened with Rohit as the in-form batter Shubman Gill sat out, contributed a painstaking 20 off 71 balls.
Ravichandran Ashwin, who probably dominated the Aussie mind space more than Jadeja, finished with 3/42 in 15.5 overs and in the process completed 450 wickets in Test cricket.
Jadeja (5/47) bowled with accuracy and subtle changes of pace that was enough to keep the Aussie batters guessing. Bowling a fuller length, he invited the batters to lunge forward but the turning wicket often left their plans in disarray.
The early dismissals of Usman Khawaja and David Warner was enough to send tremors through the visitors’ batting order and a 82-run partnership between Marnus Labuschagne and Steve Smith did little to prevent a collapse.
Labuschagne started well, striking a couple of early boundaries while Smith was kept quiet for a period of 26 balls on 6. He was beaten on a couple of occasion and also edged Axar Patel only to be put down by Virat Kohli at slip. He got out of that rut with a chip over mid-wicket for a boundary as the pair started to dominate the spinners.
Labuschagne managed eight boundaries as Australia fought back before slipping once again. Once Labuschagne (49) was dismissed to an unplayable delivery from Jadeja after lunch, the floodgates opened.
The ball dipped on Labuschagne, dragged his back foot out, and then turned away to leave him stranded.
Debutant KS Bharat had his first official dismissal and whipped off the bails in a flash.
Left-handed Matt Renshaw was dismissed next ball as the ball hit the same spot and turned back sharply to find him plumb in-front.
Smith (37), who hit a few boundaries, was dismissed when he played the wrong line to an arm-ball from Jadeja and was bowled bat-pad. From 84 for 2, it soon became 109 for 5. Peter Handscomb (31) and the counter-attacking Alex Carey (36) got quick runs to get the team past the 150-run mark but couldn’t prevent a late-order collapse.
Handscomb later said it was tough to score “when the pitch is playing tricks”. “It definitely wasn’t easy out there. It’s tough because when the pitch is playing tricks that starts to play with your mind a little bit as well,” he said.
“The ball that doesn’t do as much you expect to do a little bit more and that’s where you can come undone with the ball that goes straight on, rather than the big turners we saw out there as well.”
Video furore
A video on social media which showed Jadeja taking a substance from his teammate Mohammed Siraj and then applying and rubbing it on his left index finger caused a stir on Thursday evening. A BCCI source was quoted as saying that it was an “ointment for pain relief for the sore finger”.
Written with inputs from PTI
