Key events
Australia’s session, they dismissed Pant and Jadeja and still have a huge lead, but there’s one more genuine batting partnership to break given India’s long batting. The gap is 230 between the teams, with Reddy and Washington to resume after lunch. Boland and Lyon are today’s wicket-takers.
73rd over: India 244-7 (Reddy 40, Washington 5) Lyon does get another over before lunch, and even last ball before the break Reddy is advancing before deciding to defend. Love the way he approaches his game, full of confidence. He gets to the break, after scores of 41, 38 not out, 42, 42, and 16 in the series.
72nd over: India 243-7 (Reddy 40, Washington 4) Travis Head on for a bowl, perhaps to squeak in another over after this before lunch. Lots of loop on his off breaks, as always. But misses his length once, and Reddy comes down to smash four over mid off. Low full toss by the time he hit it. India are 237 behind, 38 from the follow on.
71st over: India 237-7 (Reddy 35, Washington 3) Cracks a cut shot! Reddy gets a short one from Lyon and hits it nicely, but it pulls up short of the rope going to the longest boundary.
70th over: India 232-7 (Reddy 31, Washington 2) Reddy keeps moving, getting off strike first ball of the over. Washington gets stuck there, and nearly dismissed by the Cummins short-ball approach, gloving a rising ball that lands just in front of Carey behind the stumps.
69th over: India 231-7 (Reddy 30, Washington 2) Lyon to Washington, who is contentedly defending before driving a late single.
68th over: India 229-7 (Reddy 29, Washington 1) Good bouncer from Cummins, Reddy is flinching away from it as he leans back. Keeps his gloves low, which is great presence of mind, and turns his head away from the ball as it follows him. So what’s his response? Charge the next one! Which is a bouncer as well, but his movement puts off Cummins a bit, and the angle goes harmlessly down the leg side. No run from the over.
67th over: India 229-7 (Reddy 29, Washington 1) Reddy wants to stay positive, and he’s been that way with his footwork to Lyon since his first knock in Perth. Steps down and lofts him over long on for six. Then gets off strike. Easy game.
66th over: India 222-7 (Reddy 22, Washington 1) One left-hander for another, as Washington replaces Jadeja. Cummins returns for Starc and is greeted defensively.
65th over: India 222-7 (Reddy 22, Washington 1) It must be nice, it must be nice, to have Washington in your side. Proper bat but coming in at No9 thanks to his spin bowling.
The threat was telegraphed there. Reddy just keeps Lyon out of his pads to begin with. The ball skids on a bit from around the wicket, straightening, and Reddy has to jab down to get it past short leg safely. But Jadeja has looked in danger from the off spinner all day, and he can’t evade a similarly skidding ball. Through his push across the line, onto the pads in front of off stump. Umpire’s call for height but that looked stone dead in real time, Jadeja right back on his stumps and falling over trying to get bat down.
64th over: India 220-6 (Jadeja 17, Reddy 21) Positive shot from Jadeja. Gets a ball full enough from Starc to flick through midwicket, and times it well for four. Plays in a similar direction for one run to follow. Reddy does the same. They’re 55 short of the follow on. Australia won’t enforce it, but it’s a marker.
63rd over: India 214-6 (Jadeja 12, Reddy 20) No run from Lyon’s over, Reddy facing.
Richard Edwards emails. “Settling in for a tough day on the couch, when who should pop up on the tube but the smiling assassin, Mr Jasprit Bumrah. India have produced some if the greatest players to put on the whites, but none have quite captured my heart as much as Bumrah. A ray of positivity, and an effective antidote to the bitter invective of Kohli and Siraj. It is a privilege to watch him this series. While I’m sharing the love, how refreshing is it to see a young fella not only do well, but do it with a joie de vivre that is both infectious and badly needed in these dark times. Onya, Sam. In the often too-serious world of Test cricket, it is great to watch players on each side who remember that joy is as much an energy as anger.”
I will say a word for Siraj, who does carry on a bit and gets emotional easily, but I don’t think there’s much anger in it, nor any malice. He’s thrown some chat around this series but not a lot, and the crowd gets on his back the second he comes up on screen. He’s a sweet natured guy himself, usually. I think his moments have been a different category to the white-line fever we’ve seen from Kohli.
62nd over: India 214-6 (Jadeja 12, Reddy 20) Starc around the wicket, hasn’t threatened yet today but he’s being clocked above 144 kph, which is hefty. Reddy takes on the pull but misses. Drops a single to point instead.
61st over: India 213-6 (Jadeja 12, Reddy 19) More positive strokeplay from Reddy against Lyon, though he nicks a ball after charging and looking to drive. Two runs from that shot, with some luck.
60th over: India 210-6 (Jadeja 12, Reddy 16) Very positive from Reddy, as he has been since debut. Drives another three runs from Starc, in between more singles. They’re a huge 264 runs behind but he’s at least drawing them closer.
59th over: India 205-6 (Jadeja 11, Reddy 12) Drinks break, then a Lyon over with a couple of singles.
58th over: India 203-6 (Jadeja 10, Reddy 11) Boland gets the wicket and gets yanked. Starc will bowl for the first time today. Left arm around the wicket, angling it in at the right-handed Reddy. And after a few deliveries leaving the ball, Reddy can’t help going after the sixth and flashes four through gully. He’s past Jadeja’s score already.
“Watching from bed with flu on the other side of the world,” writes Rob K – sorry to hear that. “With my disturbed sleep, I’m hopeful of seeing Konstas again later, and of Pant thrashing around a bit in the meantime. Surely he was the prototype for Brook, Konstas, etc. – the upstart’s upstart. (There he goes as I type this.)”
Well, quite. I did find the coverage a bit much that suggested Konstas had changed the rules. It’s been happening for a while now and the contemporary forerunner is Pant.
57th over: India 199-6 (Jadeja 10, Reddy 7) Lyon now, but Reddy doesn’t mind facing him on the evidence from the previous Tests. After a couple of singles, drills a straight drive for four.
Jane Evans has been doing the archival work. “Couldn’t find a single comment in the threads attached to your enjoyable article on yesterday’s play and Cummins’ delivery that thought Kohli did the right thing in turning his back, literally and figuratively, on the younger batsman.”
56th over: India 192-6 (Jadeja 9, Reddy 1) Big trouble becomes bigger trouble for India, still 83 short of the follow on. Nitish Kumar Reddy in next.
That is bizarre. Truly. I know that we thrill when Pant plays his signature scoop shot, when he tumbles over towards the off-side to collect a length ball outside off, sending it soaring over fine leg. It’s great when it works. But on this occasion, he misses an attempt against Boland that clatters him in the ribcage. And then instead of tempering that urge, he goes again the very next ball. With a deep third and two fielders in the deep on the leg-side. Miscues it to the wrong side of the field, and while the ball goes high, it goes straight to that deep third position for a catch.
55th over: India 191-5 (Pant 23, Jadeja 9) Lyon comes on for spin and immediately looks a threat, getting some purchase with a slip and a silly point waiting for scraps from the left-handers’ table. Jadeja nearly obliges with an edge into his boot, then an lbw appeal that is given not out, umpire’s call on leg stump.
54th over: India 186-5 (Pant 23, Jadeja 9) Boland carries on, still drawing defensive shots from Jadeja through the over, but the sixth ball strays enough in line, and he can wait for a leg glance fine for four.
“Amongst many players who came across as decent blokes in The Test – Season Two (Mitchell Marsh and Cameron Green for example), Scott Boland was the most fascinating,” writes in Gary Naylor. “Shy, and as far from an alpha male as one could imagine, he blossomed in a segment in which he embraced his Indigenous roots with a visit to a community somewhere in the interior of your vast country. What is cricket doing to reach such peoples and (slightly fearfully) how are their environments standing up to climate change?”
The reach part is improving, gradually, after a shameful temporal desert of 150 years of almost no Indigenous representation even at first-class level after a couple of players from the 1868 team were picked for state matches. But we’re still living in denial about climate effects in a country where drought will become extreme in many parts, and where intense storms cause flooding elsewhere.
53rd over: India 182-5 (Pant 23, Jadeja 5) Pant keeps going, pulling a single from Cummins. Jadeja finally gets a run! Rides the bounce and drops it off his hip to square leg. Then another false start with a quick run. Pant goes and is sent back by a yelping Jadeja. Jadeja tried that himself earlier.
Marcus Galanos on the email is after my heart. “The ball was struck forward of the stumps. The batsman on strike was running to the danger end. It was his call. Kohli clearly at fault. Why is no-one saying so?”
I assumed that plenty did. Not sure about the TV comms though, I didn’t hear any.
52nd over: India 180-5 (Pant 22, Jadeja 4) Smokes a pull shot! Pant moves along to the 20s by clattering Boland, then takes a single. Jadeja keeps blocking.
Guy Hornsby winds up the crank handle on the email machine. “Morning/evening Geoff. I’m somehow still up in darkest Sale in Manchester, full of port and cheese and wondering if Pant and Jadeja can actually save anything here. Their records suggest there’s a chance, but Pant is Cummins’ bunny of late and India must have felt an absolute gut punch after getting to 153-2 before the calamitous run-out. I’m not going to even attempt to apportion individual blame, just say it was a proper horlicks that took the wind out of India’s sails. Now it’s down to these two and a longish but bullish tail to see how much of a dent they can put into this huge Australian total. Perhaps Bumrah has made clear just how much of a rest he’d like after a mammoth series so far. We’ll find out soon enough!”
I can’t see anything about the run out except that Kohli had no business to be looking at the ball, and should have been looking at his partner. If there had been a direct hit at the non-striker’s, Jaiswal would have been the one run out. Kohli just turned that from a risk into a certainty.
51st over: India 175-5 (Pant 17, Jadeja 4) Quickly off strike, Pant, dropping and running. Jadeja gets a couple of short balls from Cummins from around the wicket, ducking one and Calypso swaying away from another. The bowler goes back over the wicket, keeping him thinking. No run still for Jadeja this morning.
50th over: India 174-5 (Pant 16, Jadeja 4) Pant kept strike with a single last over, and this time gets another chancy shot through the cordon. Couldn’t help reaching for width. They have deep third back though looking for a Pant miscue, so that stops the boundary. Jadeja gets sent back looking for a sharp single, then bails out of the next delivery as Boland delivers. “What’s up?” asks an annoyed Boland. Jadeja was late looking up from his feet.
49th over: India 173-5 (Pant 15, Jadeja 4) Whoooomph! Rishabh Pant does that thing he likes to do, from Cummins’ seventh ball of the day. Skips down the pitch and uses the momentum of the charge to flat-bat the ball over long on. Gets a lot of it, that nearly carries for six. Bounces just short. Then there’s a pause for a DRS replay as Cummins thinks that Pant might have gloved a rising ball while trying to get his hands out of the way. The forensic result is that it clipped Pant’s clothing.
48th over: India 168-5 (Pant 10, Jadeja 4) Huge crowd response as Scott Boland gets asked to open the day at the other end. Two left-handers to bowl to, and he too chooses to go over the wicket and with the angle. Jadeja is watchful to start. Boland comes around the wicket by the end of the over.
47th over: India 168-5 (Pant 10, Jadeja 4) A nice start from Cummins, hitting a good length as he angles the ball across Pant. One goes past the edge, another ball takes the thick deflection but rolls along the ground through the cordon for four.
It’s a blustery, moody sort of morning in Melbourne. Quite cool but windy in a way that hints at thunderstorms. There’s rain in the forecast, we’ll see.
Feel free to drop us an email, as usual. Let us know where you are and what you’re up to during the Christmas quiet week.
The story of yesterday for me was one delivery from Cummins to bowl KL Rahul, India’s best bat of the series. So here’s a whole piece about one ball.
Geoff Lemon
What ho, cricket folk. We’re getting ready to launch into Day 3 at the MCG, with a potential record crowd to be had over the next couple of days, but only if India can hang on. They’re in real strife at the moment, 310 runs behind on the first innings with five wickets in hand.
Yesterday saw Australia push all the way up to 474, thanks to Steve Smith registering consecutive hundreds after his ton at Brisbane, and Pat Cummins supporting him with 49 runs of his own. India were in the game while Yashasvi Jaiswal was barnstorming along with Virat Kohli in support, but they upended that with a terrible run out, then Kohli lost concentration and chased a wide ball to get out.
The fifth wicket of the day was the nightwatch, Akash Deep, so India have Pant and Jadeja to resume today, with Reddy and Sundar as proper batters to come in next. The genuine lower order is only Bumrah and Siraj. Nonetheless, it’s going to be a huge job to get anywhere within proximity of Australia’s score. As in Brisbane, the first target will be to avoid the follow on, at 111 runs away.
All on the line today, at 1-1 in the series.
