Adelaide: Australia’s unbreachable Pink Ball Fortress.
On the third day of the second test of the series, India showed why they are the boss of cricket. The game also showed why the Border Gavaskar Trophy stands out as one of the most exciting series to watch in test cricket. The prestigious series, which returned to Australia after 4 years, showed how it was best vs. best. India won over Australia in the first test, while Australia repeated the same with India in the second test.
Australia has played eight consecutive Pink Ball tests at Adelaide, making a perfect record. On both off-days, the Australian bowler shined, finishing India's innings within 200 runs in both innings.
India won the toss and chose to bat first, making three changes in the team. After Jaiswal's wicket on the first bowl of the test match, KL Rahul and Shubman Gill formed a partnership of just over 50 runs, but as soon as the partnership broke, the wickets started to fall every few overs. With Nitish Reddy's valuable 42 runs, the team scored 180 runs. On the other side, Starc bowled ruthlessly, taking wickets, making it his career-best performance; Scott and Cummins also took 2-2 wickets each.
When Australia came to bat, it was facing the challenging twilight period. With inconsistent bowling from the Indian pacer and focused batting from McSweeney and Labuschagne, Australia just lost one wicket on day 1. With an outstanding hundred of 140 from Travis Head and 64 from Labuschagne, Australia scored 337 in front of India's first-innings total, taking a lead of 157.
In the third Innings, Pat Cummins broke the Indian backbone, taking five wickets. None of India's batters was able to score over thirty except Nitish Reddy, who contributed 42, which helped India mitigate the fear of losing an innings. India scored 175 with exceptional bowling from Pat Cummins, who took the highest wicket, while Scott Boland and Mitchell Starc took 3 and 2 wickets, respectively.
After India set the tiny target of 19 runs, It was a cakewalk for the Australian openers to score a winning total with ten wickets.
With this win, Australia has won 8 Pink ball test matches at Adelaide in a row. With the first-ever Pink Test against New Zealand yesterday, Australia continues to hold the prestigious record. David Warner is the highest run scorer at the venue in the pink ball games, with 648 runs, and Mitchell Starc has 39 wickets.
The pink ball features an extra layer of lacquer compared to traditional red balls, giving pacers an extra edge with 20 per cent more swings, as was seen in the previous pink ball matches, which were mostly bowlers-dominated.
After the huge win in the first match, this was a setback for the team India. The team could have performed better during the pink ball test, raising questions about their match preparation. With Australia's one-sided win in the game, they have once again made the remainder of the three test matches interesting. RememberRemember the angle of the World Test Championship, which is just forming. Just watch the Heat in the upcoming matches.
My take:When the highest score in both the innings comes from a batter at no. Seven that too, just 42 runs, speaks about the performance of the losing team in the match.
