Unfortunately here the open window is 10am to 5pm. So I’m supposed to be working, not sleeping. But I’m a zombie.
A pundit described the current AUS v IND Test series as being like a tennis Grand Slam with the score 6-1 2-6 after two sets.
I think the IND win in the first Test to be the more resounding, given they came back from a fairly deep hole in their first innings and AUS have an exemplary record in pink ball Tests. They were still bookie favourites after getting seriously towelled up in Perth.
AUS had the worst of conditions in Adelaide, given IND’s first inning failure having the bonus making AUS bat in the twilight and evening sessions when traditionally the leather flingers have a distinct advantage.
But IND bowled a fraction short and a fraction wide with a mere handful of deliveries actually indicated as going on to hit the stumps combined with some watchful batting saw a lot of deliveries safely left in 33 overs and stumps reached just one down.
Then on Day2, with a old ball, and against a pace attack a bit off it’s lofty standards, an excellent pitch and fast outfield the times suited a positive batter familiar with the conditions and in came Head to thrill his home crowd.140 off 141 will do me.
IND lost it’s top five in the same evening conditions that AUS had successfully weathered and that was all that save the the soprano’s aria.
England had NZ on the ropes at 231-7, but then Mitchell Santner (test average 24) was treated as if he was Gooch batting with Jackman-Willis-Hendrick in the old days.
Mr. Undroppable Crawley continued his “looked good while he was out there” run.
Have to say the England innings did not go as I expected.
Shoaib Bashir bowled zero overs as the 9, 10 and Jack added 116 in 30 overs.
Mitchell Santner 3-1-7-3.
Is Shoaib in the side just in case England get to bowl on a fifth day pitch?
AUS vs IND 3rd Test @ The Gabba Day2 (Day1 being abandoned with only 13 overs of play)
While the conditions were conducive, not so hot, newish ball etc IND or more particularly Bumrah made about par inroads into that AUS batting with 3 wickets for 75.
You’ve gotta have sympathy for Nathan McSweeny. Picked for debut out of position against the worlds pre-eminent bowler, batting at times that suit the bowlers. His modest contribution of 68 @ 17 usually nicking off to Bumrah is not though he did all that could reasonably be expected in Adelaide. TPTB hopefully will stick with him for a while longer.
Then at around the 33 over mark with Smith still not settled, in comes Head who, with a ununch of a ball, flattened pitch, hot and humid conditions and bowlers lacking in consistency and energy, takes full toll. Exhilarating stuff.
He scores quickly, hits good balls for boundaries, flays anything short outside off.
Lack of penetration against him lets Smith off the leash and Smith’s last 40 were reminiscent of Smith closer to his pomp. Head gets his second big hundred of the series.
I would have been inclined to declare and give the IND openers 6-8 overs to survive. But AUS are batting on and heading towards 450 with Carey 65* and 20s to Cummins & Starc twisting the knife.
For IND to get out of this hole of their own digging will take some spadework.
They’ve been digging further down with their bats.
Ouch.
A massive reversal of fortune in the England/NZ match. After being set a 500+ target in the last match, NZ have now set England 640. It’s inevitable that if your plan is to take more risks on the grounds that you only need a couple of batters to come good to get a decent score (and if more do then you’re laughing) then from time to time the risks will all correlate and no-one does well. But it does feel like England swing from 400/500 scores to <200 with regularity.
Meanwhile, NZ have shown that it’s not a problem with the pitch, with a big second innings - nice to see Williamson get a big ton again. Following that up with Crawley (!) and Duckett’s wickets cheaply leaves not many nails needed to seal the coffin.
At least Sir Zak the Undroppable v2.0 has widened his repertoire of dismissals modes. He doesn’t nick off to keeper or slip almost every time.
I mean, we used to swing from 300/400 scores to <150, so it’s an improvement over the Root captaincy years.
How long can Stokes captain?
… and verily, they do … with the aid of half centuries to Rahul & Jadeja, a yeoman 10th wicket partnership by Bumrah & Deep, a lot of lost time caused by the Brisbane weather, Hazlewood breaking down in the warm-up and the Australian selectors who keep justifying Mitchell Mar’s selection on the basis he can be the 4th and back-up seamer and yet he bowled only 2 overs when, to say it mildly, somebody to take the load off Starc (24 overs) and Cummings (21 overs) out of the days tally of 58 would have been handy. 
.
He’s there for his fielding now?
Baring a spectacular foul-up there isn’t the time for a result now. Rain still threatens.
Unless AUS can score 120 in the morning session and with a bowler short bowl IND out in 2 sessions we are going to Melbourne with the series tied.
It’s a fair point.
Stokes’ injury looked pretty serious. He bowled a lot this match and it does look like there is now a definite clock running down, sad to say.
But he’s done for the year - England lose by 424 runs, with no-one managing to face 100 balls in what was in any case a lost cause.
A series of big victory margins: 8 wickets, 323 runs, 424 runs. Good for NZ to get the dead rubber win, this is after all the team that just beat India 3-0 at home so a 0-3 in their home would have been a hell of a comedown.
Three Boxing Day tests are underway.
India’s 8th wicket pair is putting up some stiff resistance coming together with 53 required to avoid a follow on, and have put on 104 so far.
Pakistan are looking very poor against South Africa, unfortunately. Some 30 year old chap I’ve never heard of called Corbin Bosch doing a lot of the damage with both bat and ball on debut.
And in the forgotten game Zimbos have posted a big number against Afghanistan with three batters getting hundreds. To be seen if Blessing and the Debutants can back it up with the ball. Seems like Zimbabwe have only one bowler who is anything like Test class.
4th Test Australia vs India Boxing Day Test @ MCG
Australia 474 (Smith 140, Labuschagne 72. Konstas 60; Bumrah 4-90, Jadeja 3-78)
& 234 (Labuschagne 70, Cummins 41, Lyon 41; Bumrah 5-57, Sirah 3-70)
India 369 (Reddy 114, Jaiswal 80; Cummins 3-89, Boland 3-57, Lyon 3-96)
& 155 (Jaiswal 84, Pant 30; Cummins 3-28, Boland 3-39)
Australia win by 184 runs.
Well that was a bloody good advertisement for Test cricket. An Australian record aggregate crowd of 373,691 saw two heavyweights slug it out over five days and until about tea on Day5 all four results were feasible.
Played on an excellent surface for the purpose with good and even bounce for all, a touch of movement off the pitch for the seamers, a bit of spin for the tweakers, some swing, even a little bit of reverse. Batters with intent and application made runs. 12 had an innings of more than 40 through the match. Jasprit Bumrah dominated with the ball. Australian batters prospered more against the rest of the Indian attack than the Indian batters did against the Australian attack. A couple of kids stood up and showed their mettle. A couple of old hands reminded us why they are world class. Australian fielding was consistently of high calibre; India grassed too many of the chances they created. Australia, after a shaky start grasped the initiative and retained it.
There was an unsettled preamble to the fixture. India gave all indications that they were spoiling for a fight with a couple of media altercations. Australia was fixated on whether McSweeney would be made a scapegoat for a fragile top order and if a tyro could change their fortunes against the world’s best pace bowler.
The toss was won and AUS batted. Debutant opener Konstas aged 19 and the only member of the team under 30 bolted out to the middle while his seasoned partner Khawaja ambled. He must have arrived at his crease over a minute before the Indians. He faced Bumrah’s first over and played and missed most of the over. Didn’t get bat on ball. Siraj did much the same to his partner.
In his second over of international cricket vs the world’s best Konstas misses with an attempted reverse ramp in between sparring at deliveries best left alone. The crowd, initially supportive, collectively groan. The kid is out of his depth. He doesn’t play that T20 carnival trash even when in the BBL. He tries it again without success in the next over. If he’d got a tickle on it and been ignominiously dismissed even his Mum & Dad would demand that he not be allowed to bat in the second innings. The Indian slips cordon is howling with laughter. The backchat is withering in derision. But it wasn’t desperation or intimidation, it was a plan … though I was just one amongst the audience who didn’t see it.
In the 7th over; this 19yo with all the international experience of 5 runs and 21 balls (of which he has actually got bat to only 4) then scoops Bumrah over the keeper for 4. Next ball he reverse scoops over slips for 6. Then dances down the pitch in a wlld premeditated attempt to drive. Then reverse scoops another to within inches of the rope. The chat amongst the cordon goes mute. Four slips become two as deep fine leg and deep 3rd man are put on the ropes.
For the next dozen overs Khawaja gets in on the act and Konstas goes on the attack. A bit out of classical shape but brutally effective. Runs flow. He doesn’t attempt another ramp shot. A plan coming together.
At the cross-over after the 10th over Virat walked well out of his way to bump shoulders with Konstas, as observed by Kerry O’Keefe: “Kohli has built his whole career on arrogance. Suddenly he identified that in a debutant, and he seemed to resent it.” Kohli is later docked 20% of his match fee and a demerit point. Due penalty by the ICC rulebook would have been three points and to miss the Sydney Test. But then Kohli is King, the BCCI rule and the Indians would have abandoned the tour and gone home.
The next over Konstas takes Bumrah for 18. When was the last time Jasperit was hit out of the attack?
In the 19th over Konstas is dismissed lbw by Jadeja for 60 (65b 6x4 2x6), but he has changed the whole dynamic of the inning, indeed the whole Test with his audacity.
Khawaja, Labuschagne & Smith build the score towards 250. AUS lose 3-9 with Head and Marsh going for peanuts. A century partnership between Smith and Cummins combined with a handy tail wag and AUS has 474 which will take some beating.
So IND set about beating it.
After losing their skipper early the prodigiously talented Jaiswal sets about his task. Rahul cops a good ’un. Koholi looks set and like he’s eyeing off scoring 400 himself. But after putting together an untroubled 100 partnership Jaiswal goes for a single that isn’t there, Koholi doesn’t respond (correctly imho) and the kid is run out by a postcode. Then Kohli returns to his current batting mode and gently nicks off. IND unsuccessfully send out Deep as watchman. Pant and Jadeja see out the day with IND 300 behind and 5 wickets in hand in deep schtoom .
IND lose Pant and Jadeja in the first hour of Day3. Pant’s bizzare dismissal made Konstas look as if he was batting from the Geoff Boycott manual. After missing one audacious swipe Pant played his commando roll ramp, got a leading edge and the ball gently lobbed to 3rd man where Lyon took the catch. Pant’s real problem was that in the commentary box were Indian doyens of the game i.e. Harsha Bhogle and Sunil Gavaskar. Harsha tried the “very poor choice of shot” angle but Sunny was having naught of that politeness and let fly. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.
With the follow-on still in play Nitish Kumar Reddy and Washington Sundar displayed their potential with a near chanceless century partnership allowing IND to close just over 100 runs behind. AUS’s game to lose. Which they then tried to do.
At 6-90 and only Labuschagne of the top order still at the crease it was ominous. Marnus’s second 70 for the game was a very valuable contribution to both innings.
The minimum target chase for the 4th innings is 250, and AUS is still scarred from the last tour where IND chased down 328 to win by 3 wickets and take the series. Good conventional batting got the lead up to 270 when Cummins was dismissed.
IND were poor in the field, with essentially every batter being dropped at some stage and that allowed the target to extend from gettable to bloody difficult.
There was a school of thought that AUS should declare and have a full hour at the Indian top order. But Cummins elected to bat on and the unlikely paring of Lyon & Boland got the side to stumps 9 down. Again the school of thought was to declare overnight. But Cummins batted on giving IND a chase of 339 on the last day and Bumrah another 5fa. As it turns out AUS didn’t need the 2nd new ball to bowl out a good batting card.
Nearly 75,000 filled the MCG on Day5 where win/lose/draw/tie were all possible. But early inroads whittled down the prospects so by tea IND were 3 down with Jaiswal (63) and Pant (28) at the crease needing 228 runs remaining in a single session.
The IND win from here was Boys Own Annual stuff, but then again AUS still have searing memories of Stokes at Headingley. The strategy to dismiss Pant was cavalier. Bring on the generally innocuous left arm orthodox work of Travis Head and “Bowl a rank one, and have everyone on the fence.” Pant blithely obliged and holed out to Marsh at long off. The reaction from Sunil and/or his captain is unknown to me. and The rest was a mopping up exercise.
Dammed good stuff.
The only downsides are that Starc looks a bit sore; he might struggle to be ready for Sydney with a short turn around and based on the “don’t change a winning team mantra” Mitchell Marsh whose match contribution was 5 runs, 10 overs and 2 catches will get another opportunity. 
Australian cricket followers are collectively delirious over ACB selector’s New Year Resolution to drop Mitchell Marsh in favour of debutant Beau Webster (who can bat, bowl and is in form all at the same time) for the 5th Test vs India at SCG.
Is England’s cupboard so bare that Zak Crawley is an automatic selection even if he goes another year averaging under 30 and not posting a hundred?
Er, yes.
He’s looking pretty good at the moment, having come in at 4 for not many.
Don’t reckon this match is going to the fifth day.
That’s a very good “kiss of death”!!!
AUS succumb to.a persistent IND attack and concede a 4 run lead.
The pitch is still, though less so, offering assistance to the bowlers.
The weather outlook on Tues (Day5) is for heavy rain.
Also Bumrah has left the ground, presumably for medical reasons.
This happened as soon as I said “Bumrah is half the team”