Team India retained the Border-Gavaskar trophy for the third time in a row after taking an unassailable 2-0 lead in the 4-match series. On Sunday, Rohit Sharma & Co defeated an injury-stricken Australia by 6 wickets in the second Test at Arun Jaitely Stadium in Delhi. The victory also took the hosts closer to sealing a berth in the Word Test Championship (WTC) final, scheduled to happen in England later this year.
Chasing a modest total of 115, India suffered an early blow in the form of out-of-form KL Rahul. Rohit had begun the chase by driving the ball wide of mid-on for a boundary off Matthew Kuhnemann in the opening over. But he lost his opening partner in the next over. Rahul flicked the ball to the right of short leg, but the ball lobbed up in the air after hitting the top of forward short leg’s pad and the keeper took an easy catch.
After lunch, Rohit and Cheteshwar Pujara carried on the proceeding further. They added 33 runs to the second wicket before the Indian skipper was run out due to an ugly mix-up in the middle. Virat Kohli joined the bandwagon and contributed 20 more runs to the winning cause.
The Delhi crowd wanted their local hero to bat till the end and finish the game in India’s favour but Todd Murphy didn’t let that happen. In the 18th over of India’s chase, the spinner bamboozled the former Indian skipper with a flighted delivery outside the off stump. Kohli took a couple of steps down the wicket to negate the turn but was beaten on the outside edge. Alex Carey made no mistake collecting the ball and whipping the bails off.
Shreyas Iyer, the next man in, looked to finish things off pretty quickly but fell prey to Nathan Lyon while going the aerial way. He heaved a fuller delivery across the line to deep mid-wicket but ended up holing it out to Murphy.
Pujara and Bharat steered the chase superbly, adding 27 runs for the 5th wicket to hand a convincing win to India.
It was the second consecutive game of the ongoing series that lasted less than three days. Australia took off well after bowling out India for 262 on Saturday with Travis Head going all guns blazing at the stroke of stumps. However, there was a massive twist in the plot after the resumed innings on day 3.
Ashwin got rid of Travis Head in his first over and then Ravindra Jadeja chipped in to humiliate the Aussies to their core. As many as five Australian batters went for the ugly slog sweep while some tried non-existent reverse sweep off deliveries bowled on either off-middle or leg-middle line. They were either bowled or trapped leg before in the process as the deliveries started staying low.
The Australian batting line scattered within an-hour-and-a-half, surrendering their wickets to the Indian spin duo, especially to Jadeja. The left-armer went on to pick as many as 7 Australian wickets and registered his career-best bowling figures in Test cricket – 7 for 42 in 12.1 overs.
Labuschagne, who looked confident until then, went on backfoot to a delivery that was supposed to be met on the front-foot with a big stride. Matt Renshaw doesn’t have the technique or wherewithal to guts it out on these Indian dustbowls and he has been a ‘walking wicket’ for the home team. Having replaced a concussed David Warner, Renshaw went for a sweep off Ashwin when the ball kept really low and the shot was not on.
The only delivery that was a classic left-arm orthodox one was bowled to Peter Handscomb (0), the best batter in the first innings. Jadeja, for a change, tossed it up and drew him forward before it turned away enough to get an outside edge into Virat Kohli’s hands.
Pat Cummins’s ugly slog sweep shot was more out of anger and frustration rather than purpose and Matt Kuhnemann, while giving Jadeja his seventh wicket, looked as clueless as possible. That meant Australia setting India an easy target of 115 runs.
(With Agency Inputs)
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