Mitchell Starc shone once again with the pink ball, his six-wicket haul blowing away India, as the visitors were bowled out for 180 on Day One of the second Test at Adelaide Oval here on Friday.
At stumps, Nathan McSweeney and Marnus Labuschagne were unbeaten on 38 and 20 respectively as the pair blunted India's bowlers in a solid show of discipline and defence in trying times to stitch an unbroken 62-run stand for the second wicket and enabled Australia to reach 86/1 in 33 overs and trail the visitors' by 94 runs.
Under overcast skies, Starc took his best 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 had the right response with his double strike - Rahul then Virat Kohli went, and Scott Boland stuck to his job, hitting Shubman Gill lbw, as India came from 69/1 to 81/4 in the first session. Starc then came at India's lower order with his inswinging yorkers and claimed Nitish Kumar Reddy, the top scorer for India with 42 to take his first five-for over 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 was seen 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 hold 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 started to feel comfortable with 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 favor. India won the toss earlier and elected to bat first, and Australia was seen playing in black armbands in honour of Phil Hughes and Ian Redpath. Starc gave a dream start to Australia as he gets a down-leg delivery swing back in to trap Jaiswal lbw for a golden duck.
Gill, who missed the Perth Test, was back, coming straight into action as he started with two successive late slashes and gorgeous drives off Starc to four. Rahul was seen showing the utmost patience outside off and had appeared very solid in his defence, though fended at his first ball to Boland. And everybody thought Rahul got a 18-ball duck. But Rahul got a lifeline as Boland had overstepped his crease and snicko showed there was no edge off the bat. Five balls later, Rahul got another lifeline as Khawaja dropped his catch at slip.
From there on, Rahul and Gill capitalized on the errors committed by Australia to bowl more outside the off-stump and put together a partnership of 69 runs for the second wicket. When it looked like the session was about to go into India's kitty, Starc made a comeback to turn around the script in dramatic fashion.
He first had Rahul fending at a back-of-the-length ball to diving gully, before having Kohli caught in two minds on whether to play or leave, and have him eventually caught in the slips.
Boland, playing his first Test in 18 months, dismissed a dawdling Gill lbw on a plumb for 31, and ensured Australia completed the session on a high by collecting the last three Indian wickets for 12 runs off 16 balls.
After the dinner, Boland did strike coming in with a fuller one to catch Rohit back in his crease and take him past the inside edge to trap him lbw.India could have been six down if McSweeney had clung onto a catch offered by Pant when he was on five.
Pant would add another 16 runs before a rising ball from Cummins got his bat's shoulder edge that was caught at the gully. Ravichandran Ashwin played some thrilling boundaries from Marsh and Cummins but on a top-in swing Yorker, Starc gave Ravib a lbw decision. While Harshit Rana received the same fate courtesy of a yorker that knocked the pole.
With wickets falling from one end, Reddy launched a stunning counter-attack. He middled an off-drive off Cummins for four and then thumped Boland through mid-off for another boundary.
Post lofting Starc over deep extra cover for six, Reddy tore into Boland by reverse-scooping, flicking and pulling him for two sixes and a four. But Australia continued to chip in, as Cummins got Jasprit Bumrah to edge to the first slip before Starc wrapped up the proceedings by having Reddy hole out to mid-off.
Brief scores:
India 180 all out in 44.1 overs (Nitish Kumar Reddy 42, KL Rahul 37; Mitchell Starc 6-48, Pat Cummins 2-41) lead Australia 86/1 in 33 overs (Nathan McSweeney 38 not out, Marnus Labuschagne 20 not out; Jasprit Bumrah 1-13) by 94 runs.
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