Blitz Bureau
NEW DELHI: Mitchell Starc dazzled with the pink ball yet again as his six-wicket haul blew away India, as the visitors were bowled out for 180 on Day One of the second Test at Adelaide on December 6. At stumps, Nathan McSweeney and Marnus Labuschagne, unbeaten on 38 and 20 respectively, blunted India’s bowlers in a solid show of discipline and defence in a tricky phase to stitch an unbroken 62-run stand for the second wicket and helped Australia reach 86/1 in 33 overs and trail the visitors’ by 94 runs.
Under overcast skies, Starc picked his best-ever Test figures of 6-48, including dismissing Yashasvi Jaiswal with the very first ball of the game in front of a record 50,186 supporters. After that, India built their innings on the base provided by a 69-run partnership between K.L. Rahul and Shubman Gill.
But Starc got into action again with his double strike, removing Rahul and then Virat Kohli, before Scott Boland trapped Shubman Gill lbw, as India went from 69/1 to 81/4 in the first session. Starc then used his in-swinging yorkers to scythe through India’s lower order and take out Nitish Kumar Reddy, India’s top run-scorer with 42, to bag his first Test five-for against India.
In the final session, the pink ball did a lot of movement for India’s seamers, who didn’t attack the stumps much to cause trouble and took only one wicket. Jasprit Bumrah’s mastery on display saw him squaring up McSweeney and finding his outside edge. Rishabh Pant dived to his right to take the catch but only managed to get his fingertips on the ball. Rohit Sharma couldn’t grab the catch on the rebound as the ball hit his right wrist, giving McSweeney a life on three. Bumrah finally had a wicket when Usman Khawaja just fended at a length ball that bounced and took the outside edge to slip. The under-pressure Labuschagne took 19 balls to get off the mark before flicking off Siraj to get his first boundary.
On the other hand, McSweeney began to be comfortable in pulling and punching for his boundaries, before hitting Nitish Kumar Reddy for back-to-back fours. Despite floodlights going off twice, McSweeney and Labuschagne hit a couple of boundaries to ensure Australia ended the opening day of the day-night match in their favour. Previously, India won the toss and elected to bat first, with Australia sporting black armbands in memory of Phil Hughes and Ian Redpath. Starc gave Australia a dream start by getting a down-leg delivery to swing back in and trap Jaiswal lbw for a golden duck.
