Perhaps for the first time on this Indian tour, Australia dominated the entire day’s play against India on Day 1 of the third Test at the Holkar Stadium in Indore. And surprisingly, it was their spinners who helped them achieve that. Matthew Kuhnmann’s maiden five-wicket haul of Nathan Lyon’s 3/25 and Todd Murphy’s 1/23 allowed India to be bowled out for 109 after the Kangaroos were asked to field first.
Kuhnmann’s slow left-arm spin was too good for the star-studded Indian lineup as he picked up the wickets of Rohit Sharma, Shubman Gill, Shreyas Iyer, Ravichandran Ashwin and Umesh Yadav to record his maiden five-wicket haul. Test match cricket. It took Australia a little over a season to dismiss the Men in Blue in their home conditions.
In reply, while India got the wicket of Travis Head early, a 96-run partnership between Usman Khawaja (60) and Marnus Labuschagne (31) more or less ensured that Australia would take the lead and even though the Aussies You have ended the day. Playing on 156/4 with all the wickets falling to Ravindra Jadeja, the day completely belonged to the visitors, who faced a lot of criticism in this Test match.
At the end of the day’s play, the scoreboard showed Australia 47 runs ahead with 6 wickets in hand and Peter Handscomb and Cameron Green out in the middle. Jadeja was the only wicket-taker for India, but was guilty of bowling a no-ball on which he removed Labuschagne before his stand with Khawaja’s perfection, helping Australia seal the day. Got it.
Left-handed Khawaja was the performer in both the innings and played an almost chanceless knock before falling to Jadeja in the end. He relied on his defense but when he felt the ball to be hit, he went for his strokes. His 147-ball knock included four fours.
All is not lost for India despite a 14-wicket day and they have already secured a 47-run lead, which is getting thicker on just Day 2. This is because they have batsmen who will be determined. He did better in the second innings and will take heart from the fact that he is not going to bat at number four on this track.
Earlier, Virat Kohli (22) and Shubman Gill (21) were the top scorers for India in a flop show by the batsmen on the spinning track.
