Australia spinner Nathan Lyon brought out his A-game at the Arun Jaitley stadium on the second day of the second Border Gavaskar Test match. Lyon went on to pick a crucial fifer, ending up with figures of 5/67 and played a crucial role in restricting India to 139/7 at one stage.
Nevertheless, India were rescued by the counter-attacking stand between Axar Patel and Ravi Ashwin and both shared a hundred plus run stand between each other.
Most top-order India batters were adjudged leg-before on the front-foot, barring skipper Rohit Sharma, who was bowled playing across the line. The worrying trend was India batters playing the Australian spinners with their pads as the first line of defence.
However, Axar and Ashwin applied the strategy to consistently counter-attack the bowlers despite the fall of seven wickets. Instead of plonking the front-foot forward, they used the pace of the deliveries from Todd Murphy (2/53 in 18 overs) and debutant left-arm spinner Matt Kuhnemann (2/72 in 21.3 overs), to score runs.
Axar got his third fifty — and a second consecutive one in the series — with a six over cow corner off Kuhnemann and another over extra cover off Murphy. He also hit a six off Lyon, but his standout shot was a back-foot punch through the covers off Pat Cummins.
Ashwin too was determined at the other end and did not let go of the scoring opportunities as Australia lost the initiative after dominating the better part of the first one-and-a-half sessions on Saturday.
“They are not lower order – Axar, Ash could easily bat in top 6 anywhere in the world, they are not lower order, India have long top order,” Lyon told the media after the match.
“Very happy with the five-for, we have got the whole eye in the test match, still a lot more work to do.”
“There was a lot more bounce in Delhi as compared to Nagpur.”
“Little bit of bounce is something I like to exploit here, I love playing cricket here in the subcontinent. It is a challenge to bowl here bowling at some world-class superstars,” he added.
Furthermore, he added that he had spoken to Travis Head when he was dropped for the first Test match in Nagpur.
“I reached out to Head (Travis) when we he was not picked in Nagpur, but Trav being Trav was extremely confident coming into the game.”
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