TEAM INDIA DOES A PUNE IN BENGALURU
EIGHT PACK The Aussie offspinner picks careerbest 8/50 to bundle out hosts for 189 on Day One of the second Test; his effort is the best by a visiting bowler in India
BANGALORE: Another sensational collapse against spin bowling saw the Indian team all out for 189 on the first day of the second Test match against Australia at the M Chinnaswamy stadium on Saturday. Australian off-spinner Nathan Lyon produced a master class on a first day pitch sporting cracks, where batting was challenging but not impossible as demonstrated by KL Rahul, the lone Indian to weather the attack. The 29-year-old bowler captured eight for 50, the finest innings haul by a visiting player in India. The highpoint was his dismissal of skipper Virat Kohli for 12, trapped leg-before offering no shot. Opener KL Rahul made a superb 90 and was the ninth batsman out, after Kohli won the toss and chose to bat. But the next best score was by Karun Nair, who made 26. Nair had been brought in to shore up the flailing batting after the Pune fiasco.
BANGALORE: After the rout at Pune inside three days, skipper Virat Kohli had declared the batting surrender against Australia’s spinners was a reality check.
However, after the first day of the second Test at the M Chinnaswamy stadium on Saturday, the Indian dressing room would have been left numb by the reality their batsmen faced.
On a dry pitch with cracks that promise to open up, it seemed advantage India after Kohli won the toss and batted.
But the faces had turned grim after the collapse which saw India dismissed for 189, lasting just 71.2 overs, and less than five hours.
Off-spinner Nathan Lyon was the chief wrecker, his eight for 50 being the best spell by a visitor in a Test innings in India, and reward for a bowler who has toiled for Australia in the postShane Warne era.
LYON VS INDIA
Statistics show India are his favourite team.
The 7/94 in Delhi on the calamitous 2013 tour for Australia couldn’t prevent India from winning 4-0, but the 7/152 at Adelaide in late 2014 helped halt India’s charge led by Virat Kohli’s magnificent century.
Left-arm spinner Steve O’Keefe demonstrated Australia’s thorough planning in the Pune Test with a sensational haul of 12/70, bowling India out for 105 and 107.
At Bangalore, there was no doubt who the bowling leader was.
Lyon extracted sharp bounce, using the rough as well on the far end, and pitched a tad shorter to draw the batsmen tentatively forward.
The first four wickets to fall to spin was a result of that missing confidence among the batsmen.
WARNE-LIKE MOMENT
In 2004, when Australia won the first Test in Bangalore, it was Warne’s wicket of his 2001 tormentor VVS Laxman that stood out, the batsman searching for the line as he was beaten and bowled.
Lyon, on Saturday, had removed Cheteshwar Pujara, caught at forward short leg off bat and body, at the stroke of lunch.
But he got his Warne-like moment after the break. He consistently varied the line, and length, leaving even a batsman of Kohli’s calibre guessing.
The result was a late attempt to pull the bat away, only for the ball, which had spun very little, hit below the roll of the front pad, with Kohli rooted in the crease.
A review was more in hope, but it only confirmed India are yet to come to terms with the use of Decision Review System (DRS) technology.
RAHUL LEADS AGAIN
In Pune, India opener KL Rahul had scored 64, more than half of India’s first innings total of 105.
The Karnataka batsman lived dangerously in the morning, playing and not connecting sweeps and reverse-sweeps. He was dropped on 30, off O’Keefe, and on 61, off Lyon.
But Rahul has a knack of scor- ing big once he is set, and the 24-year-old calmed down postlunch, taking the responsibility after fellow opener Murali Vijay pulled out due to a shoulder problem, first suffered in the Chennai Test against England and aggravated while fielding in Pune.
With Rahul himself playing despite a shoulder problem, he curbed the urge to loft until he was left with only the tail-enders, double-hitting Lyon’s delivery straight to mid-off.
Australia were 40 for none at stumps, seeing off 16 overs. It will take plenty for Ravichandran Ashwin and Co to help lift the gloom caused by Indian batsmen losing their poise against spin, once considered their second nature.