Adelaide: Mitchell Starc dazzled in operating with the pink ball yet again as his six-wicket haul blew 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, unbeaten on 38 and 20 respectively, blunted India’s bowlers in a solid show of discipline and defence in a tricky phase to stitch an unbroken 62-run stand for the second wicket and helped Australia reach 86/1 in 33 overs and trail the visitors’ by 94 runs.
Under overcast skies, Starc picked his best-ever 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 got into action again with his double strike, removing Rahul and then Virat Kohli, before Scott Boland trapped Shubman Gill lbw, as India went from 69/1 to 81/4 in the first session. Starc then used his in-swinging yorkers to scythe through India's lower order and take out Nitish Kumar Reddy, India’s top run-scorer with 42, to bag his first Test five-for against 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’s mastery on display saw him 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 grab 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.
Jasprit Bumrah celebrated his 31st birthday in style, becoming the first pacer to notch 50 Test wickets in 2024. IANS
Scoreboard
India: 1st innings
Yashasvi Jaiswal lbw b Starc 0
KL Rahul c McSweeney b Starc 37
Shubman Gill lbw b Boland 31
Virat Kohli c Smith b Starc 7
Rishabh Pant c Labuschagne b Cummins 21
*Rohit Sharma lbw b Boland 3
Nitish Reddy c Head b Starc 42
Ravichandran Ashwin lbw b Starc 22 Harshit Rana b Starc 0
Jasprit Bumrah c Khawaja b Cummins 0
Mohammed Siraj not out 4
Extras: 13; Total: 180-10 (44.1)
FOW:Jaiswal (0-1, 0.1), Rahul (69-2, 18.4), Kohli (77-3, 20.1), Gill (81-4, 21.1), Sharma (87-5, 25.5), Pant (109-6, 32.5), Ashwin (141-7, 38.2), Rana (141-8, 38.5), Bumrah (176-9, 43.3), Reddy (180-10, 44.1)
Bowling:
Mitchell Starc 14.1 2 48 6
*Pat Cummins 12 4 41 2
Scott Boland 13 0 54 2
Nathan Lyon 1 0 6 0
Mitchell Marsh 4 0 26 0
Australia: 1st innings
Usman Khawaja c Rohit b Bumrah 13
Nathan McSweeney not out 38
Marnus Labuschagne not out 20
Extras: 15 ; Total: 86-1 (33)
FOW:Usman Khawaja (24-1, 11)
Bowling
Jasprit Bumrah 11 4 13 1
Mohammed Siraj 10 3 29 0
Harshit Rana 8 2 18 0
Nitish Reddy 3 1 12 0
Ravichandran Ashwin1 1 0 0
Also Read: Very hopeful that Hazlewood will take part in rest of the series, says Mitchell Starc
Also Watch: