Over in 2 1/2 days with four innings each well under 200 and lasting 190 overs.without being an outrageous seamer the pitch gave the bowlers the upper hand for virtually every over faced. Spinners only bowled a combined 10 overs.
Few batters flourished and not for long. Only one faced 100 deliveries (Beau Webster) and six facing 50, all being in the two first innings. Only Pant got 100 runs for the match.
IND losing their bowling talisman Bumrah proved to be pivotal. I doubt many would have been confident of AUS chasing 180-200 against a full strength IND bowling.
Day3 started with AUS finishing off the IND innings taking 4-15 leaving a 162 run chase which was sufficient to be awkward. But the bowling was wayward with far too many sundries (16) and AUS got off to a flier. There way a substantial wobble but a good partnership between Khawaja & Head then Head & Webster righted the ship and brought home the chocolates. Steve Smith was stranded on 9,999 career Test runs.
Most of this AUS squad have been trying to beat IND for a decade so that is a career achievement tick and the next time they meet there will be a swathe of changes.
Webster had a very good debut and showed what happens when you pick proven performers who are in form.
Boland was superb on a deck he’d like to bowl on for the rest of his career. While fit, Bumrah was always threatening.
They seem to be doing better in the second innings - still putting up a fight when I left work (our office balcony overlooks the pitch so I could tell exactly when each of today’s wickets fell)
It’s still going to be all over today I fear. We’ve had a bit of fun at the expense of your tiring bowlers, but the hole was too deep, especially without one of our frontline bats.
I was going to reply that the Saffers aren’t going to want to come back tomorrow, but before I could do that, they’d already knocked ofc the needed in 7 of the available 11 overs. From the looks of it neither team wanted to drag this into tomorrow.
I was surfing the sports channel sector of my Direct TV streaming when I discovered “Willow” and “Willow Extra”! I have several questions about what I was looking at, but I need to organize and clarify them first before I post them.
The only bit of dry earth within the entire city limits is the bare, lifeless patch between the stumps, Cap’n Smith wins the toss and bats.
He sits in the shed for 30 overs and 135 runs while Head makes a quickfire 50 and Labuschagne fannies about for a dour 50 balls then Smudge gets the single to nudge his career Test aggregate above 10,000 and truely put him into the pantheon of the greats.
Most of the afternoon session Khawaja and Smith spend an inordinate proportion of their stand kicking away balls pitching a metre outside leg stump. It’s be totally boring if they weren’t still going at 4.5 and over. Apart from a risk of inducing cramp, batting is serenely patient and untroubled until first session Day2 with the score over 400, when Smith gets out with his 35th Test ton.
Kawaja continues to his 200 and Josh Inglis (on debut and coming to the crease @ 3/401) thinks this Test cricket stuff is a doddle. He’s on his way to a 50, the score is on it’s way to 500 and no declaration is in sight.
In other Australian test news, Australian are winning the Women’s Ashes at a canter, making a usually pretty decent England side look severely undercooked.
In the sole Test, England are 170 all out after 70 overs, with King taking 4-45. Australia are 56/1 in reply.
In the T20s and ODIs that make up the rest of the Ashes contest, Australia are 6 from 6, with only one being close, a T20 won by 6 runs. Otherwise a succession of 50 or 100+ run margins, and one 4 wicket victory with 67 balls left.
For Australia a triumph, for England a serious thumping.
Good evidence that women’s cricket is being taken as seriously as men’s comes in the form of various articles calling for resignations and rethinks.
