India Falter Once Again as Australia Holds Upper Hand on Day 1 of Sydney Test

A Rohit Sharma-less Team India found themselves in trouble on Day 1 of the fifth Test against Australia in Sydney on Friday, with the visitors having been bowled out for 185 after opting to bat. Jasprit Bumrah is leading India in the series finale in Rohit’s absence and the pacer said at the toss on Friday that Rohit had “opted to rest” for the game.

Virat Kohli’s (17) struggles with outside off deliveries continued after he was dismissed by Scott Boland, courtesy of a catch by debutant Beau Webster.

At stumps, Australia were 9 for 1 with stand-in skipper Jasprit Bumrah sending the woefully out-of-form Usman Khawaja (2) back into the hut. Teenage sensation Sam Konstas was unbeaten at 7 after hitting Bumrah for a first-ball four. The 19-year-old also had an animated exchange with the Indian star.

Bumrah opted to bat under overcast conditions and the ultra-defensive approach by Indian batters only compounded their problems with Scott Boland’s (20-8-31-4) immaculate length and tremendous discipline leaving them in a disarray.

Mitchell Starc (18-5-49-3) and Pat Cummins (15.2-4-37-2) were equally relentless giving the Indians no room for release shots. If Rohit’s decision to ”rest” was a forward thinking move, the persistence with Kohli is proving to be detrimental and the the celebrated batter might just have one more Test innings left to save his place in the traditional format.

If one takes away the second innings hundred at Perth out of his last 20 Test innings, Kohli has managed an average of 17.57. He could have been out off Boland’s first delivery but tried to battle hard. However, it has always been that one moment in which his hands and the willow magnetically follow a delivery in the corridor of uncertainty.

Pant curbs natural instincts for a session
Having copped criticism from all quarters for his bizarre shot selection in Melbourne, Rishabh Pant (40 off 98 balls), for a change, copped body blows, trying to curb his natural game. The big-hitter in him came out only on a couple of occasions with one of them fetching him a straight six off Beau Webster.

Pant put his head down and endured nasty blows on his bicep, helmet and twice in the sensitive abdominal area. He and the dogged Ravindra Jadeja (26 off 95 balls) defended dourly as they added 48 off 151 deliveries for the fifth wicket.

Only 50 runs were scored in the second session and trying not to be adventurous proved counter-productive with most batters retreating in a shell letting Boland and company dictate the terms of play. Finally, Pant’s patience ran out and one pull shot too many became his undoing.

India realised they haven’t scored enough runs and lost a lot of wickets. The defensive tactic in the second session when the ball got old ended up costing them dearly. There wasn’t much swing on offer despite cloudy conditions but a decent grass cover ensured that Boland’s back-of-length deliveries proved enough.

As far as Pant was concerned, the ”honest conversations” with head coach Gautam Gambhir seemed to have worked with the southpaw respecting the game situation for the most part. If Pant was disciplined, Shubman Gill’s judgement on the last delivery before lunch did cause trouble for India.

Gill (20 off 64 balls) did all the hard work for close to a couple of hours before stepping out to Nathan Lyon on the last ball of the session only to be caught at first slip. In the morning, KL Rahul and Yashasvi Jaiswal came in to open the innings but didn’t last long and the saga of first innings failures continued.