Jadejahelpshostsfight, Oznoseahead

PROMISING Shaun Marsh, Matt Renshaw score fifties to help Australia take lead

It was India’s biggest day in the Test series against Australia, and at the end of it on Sunday, the home team’s bowlers can look back at their lion-hearted effort that ensured the opposition did not run away with the second Test at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium.

Australia may hold the patent for moving the game forward all the time, but Steven Smith’s side has surprised India by tweaking that concept by showing aggression with ball and patience with the bat.

Caught out by the Aussies’ team plans after their third straight batting failure against spin --- dismissed for 189 by Nathan Lyon’s record 8/50 --- India’s bowling fightback was led by the under-bowled spinner Ravindra Jadeja’s three important scalps.

The visitors were 237/6 at stumps, taking a lead of 48 runs with Mathew Wade (25) and Mitchell Starc (14), who hurt India with a cameo in the Pune Test defeat, keeping alive Australia’s hopes of pushing the innings to dent India’s hopes of making it a second innings battle.

Matt Renshaw may be only 20 and playing in his sixth Test, but showed the patience of a seasoned campaigner. The opener’s 60, batting for almost four-and-half hours, and Shaun Marsh’s 66 kept Australia just ahead at the close.

India will take heart from restricting Australia to 197 runs from 90 overs. But for more pain with the DRS use --- all three reviews were turned down with India exhausting the chance to use technology in this innings --and continued poor catching --skipper Virat Kohli dropped Matt Renshaw on 29 and Wriddhiman Saha put down Starc on 0 to make it three misses --- India may well have started the second innings.

Nathan Lyon said dipping into Ravichandran Ashwin’s bag of tricks has helped, but the returns for India’s world No 1 bowler was in stark contrast as he didn’t find success after bowling David Warner (33) in the morning.

He toiled for 35 overs, but the rough that Lyon cashed in on was outside leg-stump for the Aussie left-handers, and there was Warner, Renshaw, Shaun Marsh and Mathew Wade.

The job was made tougher as