SLOW & UNSTEADY

Pujara’s slowest Test 50 derails visitors momentum

Sydney, Jan. 9: Cheteshwar Pujara’s singular lack of intent pushed an injury-ravaged India into a deep hole as Australia tightened the noose with a substantial

197-run lead on a forgettable Saturday for the visitors in the third Test here.

Pujara’s slowest Test half-century, a painstaking 50 off 176 balls, was soon followed by India being bowled out for 244 on the third day with the other batsmen feeling tremendous pressure of a dormant scoreboard.

A first-innings lead of 94 runs provided by the bowlers and some good fielding did help Australia’s cause.

By stumps, Steve Smith

(29 batting) and Marnus Labuschagne (47 batting) gave an exhibition of how to bat on slow tracks with Australia reaching 103/2.

Labuschagne, in particu

lar, showed how to bat positively on a dead track hitting six boundaries in 67 balls.

As Shane Warne pointed out during commentary, it would be very difficult to chase any score in excess of 250 with variable bounce and the odd balls keeping low.

Pat Cummins

(4/29

in

21.4 overs) was brilliant on an unresponsive track with some effective shortpitched bowling and got good support from Josh Hazlewood (2/43 in 21 overs) and Mitchell Starc

(1/61 in 19 overs), having set up a leg-side trap.

To make matters worse for India, there were runouts and two batsmen —

Rishabh Pant and Ravindra Jadeja — were hit on the left elbow and left thumb respectively.

Earlier, Pujara’s ultradefensive approach put tremendous pressure on his colleagues and India never quite got the momentum going as Cummins, Hazlewood and Starc continuously attacked the batsmen — first with a leg-side field and short-ball strategy and then on the corridor of uncertainty.

Pujara doesn’t play the pull or hook shot well and he wasn’t allowed room to either cut or drive.

“I don’t think it was the right approach (by Pujara), I think he needed to be a bit more proactive with his scoring rate because I felt it was putting too much pressure on his batting partners,” former Australian captain Ricky Ponting wrote on twitter.