Australia tightened their grip on the pink ball Test as their formidable pacers scythed through India's top-order after nemesis Travis Head's counterattacking century handed his team a substantial first-innings lead on a riveting second day here on Saturday.
The Adelaide Oval was throbbing with life through the three sessions of play as Head dominated India with his wide range of strokes on the way to a 140 off 141 balls before the trio of Scott Boland (2/39), Mitchell Starc (1/49) and Pat Cummins (2/33) left the visitors in a spot of bother at 128 for five in their second innings and trailing by 29 runs.
At stumps, Rishabh Pant was living dangerously on a 25-ball 28 and Nitish Reddy was batting on 15 off 14.
India seems to be in what looks close to a hopeless situation because of a flopped show with the bat. "We won the first test match after the batting came good in the second innings, but mainly it was Bumrah who won the match for us in Perth. This batting issue has been persistent since the New Zealand series," THE WEEK's Sports Consultant Ayaz Memon pointed out.
"We lost 0-3 (to New Zealand) because the batters just couldn't cope... It was against spin in India and it is now against fast bowling that the Indian top order is having trouble.
The Australian bowlers managed to exploit the 157-run lead because the Indian batting looked very vulnerable. At Perth, where India won, they were bundled out for 150 before the bowling unit consisting of Bumrah, Siraj and Harshit Rana stepped up to hand India a valuable lead. This was the cornerstone on which the second innings fightback was built.
"But overall, India's batting has looked wobbly and vulnerable. Yes, the pink ball does a lot of movement under the lights, but for most of the day. at least the first half, it wasn't so bad. That is why Head and company made a big score," Memon said.
Misfiring big guns: A cause of concern
"The big issue that is worrying India is the woeful form of Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma. Kohli made a super 100 at Perth, but if you look at his other 3 scores in the series, they are 5,7 and 11. And before that he had, multiple failures against NZ.
"Rohit Sharma didn't do much. He had a very miserable series against New Zealand and look completely out at sea in this match, though he batted at number 6. He let Rahul and Jaiswal open, but he just couldn't get runs. So now if both these guys --stalwarts of the Indian team-- are struggling, it puts a lot of pressure on the rest of the batting."
If the two heavyweights are not firing, the batting comes under a lot of strife.
Travis Head the nemesis!
Travis Head played a super counter-attacking innings at his home turf on Saturday, turning the game in Australia's favour. "Head has been a thorn, in India's flesh for the last couple of years. He got a hundred in the WTC final, then in the ODI World Cup final in 2023 and now today... When it seemed that Australia was in a crisis, he pulled the team out and even put them into a winning situation, Ayaz Memon said.
