Australia v India: second men’s Test, day one – live

Key events

The pitch, you all cry. What about the pitch? It looks decent. Not as grassy as some in previous years. The curators here trust the pink ball now to keep its shine, so they don’t leave the luxuriant leafage of the first few years. This strip has a few tinges down the edges but is straw toned down the business section. The grass here does go that colour while it’s still alive though, so there might be some grip for the bowlers, make it move sideways a touch. And then there’s the hope of swing. We’ll see.

Teams

Ashwin is back! And the rest goes as expected.

India
KL Rahul
Yashasvi Jaiswal
Shubman Gill
Virat Kohli
Rishabh Pant +
Rohit Sharma *
Nitish Kumar Reddy
Ravichandran Ashwin
Harshit Rana
Mohammed Siraj
Jasprit Bumrah

Australia
Nathan McSweeney
Usman Khawaja
Marnus Labuschagne
Steve Smith
Travis Head
Mitchell Marsh
Alex Carey +
Mitchell Starc
Pat Cummins *
Nathan Lyon
Scott Boland

India win the toss and bat

The coin falls for the visitors! Rohit is back as skipper after Bumrah’s successful match deputising. He wants to put up a score.

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As for India, there are so many ways that could go. We now know that KL Rahul will remain as opener, and Rohit Sharma will bat “somewhere in the middle,” as he offered yesterday at his captain’s press conference. So Dhruv Jurel is the omission that would accommodate that. Devdutt Padikkal will be the one for Shubman Gill if they make that change at No3.

The bowling is more interesting to me. Ravichandran Ashwin has 536 Test wickets. Ravindra Jadeja has 319. They were both left out in Perth for Washington Sundar, who has 24 wickets. And yeah, he batted ok, but India’s great spinners can both bat as well. So, surely they have to give Ashwin a chance in Adelaide? It’s criminal leaving him on the bench.

Young all-rounder Nitish Kumar Reddy probably did enough to keep his spot, maybe at No7, then for the quicks, Jasprit Bumrah certainly plays, Mohammad Siraj should although you never know what India’s selection gambles may be, and the main question is whether they might prefer the swing of Akash Deep rather than the pace and bounce of Harshit Rana, which worked well in Perth but might have been a pick based on conditions.

How about a preview? I wrote one yesterday focusing on the Australian bowlers, let’s have that.

Preamble

Geoff Lemon

Hello! Here we are in Adelaide. It’s crunch time for Australian cricket. The reaction was explosive after the home team got hammered by India in Perth in the first Test. Having ten days between engagements has helped things simmer down, but that simmer will soon return to a boil if India turn up the heat again. (Ok, we’ll not stretch this metaphor any further.)

It’s a five-Test series, so going 2-0 down is not technically the end of it, but from memory teams have only come back from that deficit twice in Test history. So if Australia’s struggling batting gets rocked again here, they’re in major strife. In their favour is the day-night format with the pink ball, which Australian players have seen more of than those of any other country.

It’s stinking hot outside, as it has been the last few days, with a fan-forced oven sort of wind blustering across the city, but the clouds have come over today, which will give some respite to the side bowling. We may have some stormy precipitation at some stage in the afternoon. Who knows. Late last night the sky was flickering with dry lightning like a series of paper lanterns, but nary a drop fell.