Rishabh Pant’s blazing half-century and another Australian batting collapse has combined to give India the upper hand to win the fifth Test at the SCG and retain the Border-Gavaskar Trophy.
Momentum swung back to India on day two of a Test being played in fast-forward with the Aussies bowled out for 181 to trail by four on the first innings before Pant’s swashbuckling knock cancelled out Scott Boland’s triple strike on India’s top order.
Pant smacked 61 from 33 deliveries, including six fours and four sixes, as India motored to 6-141 from just 32 overs in the second innings to lead by 145 with four wickets in hand heading into day three.
Making the tourists’ effort in the field more remarkable was the fact that pace spearhead Jasprit Bumrah was absent after leaving the field one over into his spell early in the second session and did not return after leaving the ground to get scans on what was thought to be a side strain.
Indian officials are yet to announce a prognosis for their skipper and their chances of defending a fourth-innings target will hinge greatly on whether he is able to bowl.
With the ball seaming all over the place, anything more than 200 will be a huge chase for the Australians, particularly after their batters failed to fire in the first dig, apart from debutant all-rounder Beau Webster, who stood tall literally and figuratively by top-scoring with 57.
Pant’s style tears Aussies apart
Pant made his way to the wicket with the Test on a knife-edge with his team four down and ahead by just 63 runs.
He then stepped down that very same wicket on the first ball he faced to tonk Boland for six.
The mercurial keeper showed he still has the reverse ramp in his bag of tricks even though it got him out in Melbourne by then trying the shot later in that over – fortunately for him though he did not connect because Nathan Lyon was lying in wait on the deep third boundary.
Pant refused to stay in his crease – dancing down the pitch with no second thoughts as he muscled the ball to the boundary at a strike rate of around 200 throughout his game-turning knock.
The 27-year-old left-hander had a slice of luck on 34 when he edged Beau Webster but Alex Carey, keeping up to the stumps, was no chance of pouching the deflection.
Pant brought up his half-century with back-to-back sixes off Starc’s second feeble spell, lofting him over the square leg boundary not just with power, but precision timing.
His daytime pyrotechnics display came to an abrupt end from his 33rd delivery when he nicked Pat Cummins through to Carey.
Shubman Gill became Webster’s first Test wicket when he nicked off while trying to replicate Pant’s big hitting on 13 and the Tasmanian should have had Ravindra Jadeja in the last over before stumps but Steve Smith grassed a catch when he dived in front of Usman Khawaja at first slip to spoil what should have been a regulation chance.
Jadeja and Washington Sundar will each resume on eight on day three, looking to extend their lead to at least more than 200 to set Australia a tough target on this uncharacteristically seaming SCG wicket.
Rishabh Pant bats at Sydney Cricket Ground. (Photo by Darrian Traynor/Getty Images)
Boland leaps Starc in pecking order
Whether it was the injury he carried into this Test, fatigue or just a bad day at the office, Mitchell Starc dished up a smorgasbord of tripe at the SCG in two woeful spells on Saturday.
Boland, as he pretty much always does, was fantastic as he sent both openers and Virat Kohli back to the pavilion in typically understated fashion.
Cummins shared the new ball with Starc but the left-armer sprayed the shiny Kookaburra and Yashasvi Jaiswal cashed in with four boundaries from the opening over of India’s second dig.
When Boland was introduced, he bowled KL Rahul (13) in his first over and then produced possibly the ball of the series to jag the ball past Jaiswal’s blade to hit the top of off stump with an unplayable leg-cutter to send him on his way for 22.
His dismissal of Kohli for six was almost identical to the removal of the fading superstar in the first innings.
Old King Kohli was not a merry old soul as he admonished himself for hanging his bat outside off stump with minimal footwork to present Steve Smith a catch at second slip.
Boland re-entered the fray late in the day to have MCG centurion Nitish Kumar Reddy caught at mid-off for four to make it 8-73 for the match, lifting his series tally to 19 wickets at a little more than 14 per victim despite only playing three Tests.
Mark Waugh joked on Fox Cricket that bowling machines should be renamed in Boland’s honour due to his robotically relentless performances.
Josh Hazlewood looks like he will be available for the two-Test tour of Sri Lanka later this month.
With only two seamers likely to be needed on the turning tracks and Cummins potentially missing a match or two with his wife due to give birth to their second child, Boland has at the very least jumped Starc in the pecking order and if there are any questions over Hazlewood’s fitness, he should get the nod ahead of him too.
Fragile Aussie batting exposed again
Resuming at 1-9 in response to India’s 185, the Australians had a golden opportunity to drive home their advantage but their brittle batting unit again fell in a heap.
Bumrah was too good for Marnus Labuschagne, who feathered a catch through to Pant on two, and teenage opener Sam Konstas threw his wicket away with a reckless 38-ball knock which yielded 23 runs.
Konstas batted in the same fashion as Pant, trying to hit more balls to the boundary than not, but some of his shots were little more than slogs as he advanced at Bumrah’s seamers and Mohammed Siraj’s outswingers.
Siraj claimed Konstas with a nick to the gully and then had Travis Head on his way for four as the home side slumped to 4-39.
Steve Smith suffered a case of the nervous 9,990s as he edged Prasidh Krishna to Rahul on 33 just before lunch after a 57-run partnership with Webster.
The 31-year-old debutant from the tiny town of Snug, south of Hobart, looks snug indeed at this level, pacing his innings nicely, not looking flustered despite coming in with his team in strife and bringing up his half-century with a thumping cover drive.
Carey (21) and Cummins (10) threatened to hang around with Webster but when the debutant departed for 57, the tail didn’t wag and the Aussies ended up with a four-run deficit on the first innings.
Bumrah injury a mystery
Judging by the way Bumrah bounded up the steps of the Members’ Stand after being taken from the SCG for scans on his undisclosed injury, there’s a fair chance he will bowl in the final innings.
Whether he does or not could decide whether Australia have any hope of chasing down the victory target given that he now has 32 wickets in this series at the imperious average of 13.06.
Bumrah left the field with a couple of overs to go in the first session and it just appeared like he was getting an early rest before the lunch break.
But when he returned to the dressing room after bowling just one over in the middle session, alarm bells started ringing.
As is their usual practice, the Indian camp was tightlipped on the nature of the ailment – he reportedly has a side strain and the injury is not related to the stress fractures which forced him to have back surgery last year.
Former Australian coach Darren Lehmann was emphatic on ABC Radio in saying that if Bumrah does not bowl again in this Test, then the tourists will lose and surprisingly, Indian legend Sunil Gavaskar agreed with that assessment.
The Border-Gavaskar Trophy series has taken many twists and turns since day one in Perth back in November and heading into what looks set to be the final day of the contest, any result is possible with neither side too confident about their prospects of winning.
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