Border-Gavaskar Trophy – The much-awaited test series commenced on 17 December at Adelaide with the first (Day and Night Match) between Tourists (India) and (hosts) Australia. After winning the limited overs cricket series by 2-1 team India gets the major blows before the start of Test Series when Rohit Sharma and Ishant Sharma have been pulled out of the series due to injury issues. India after winning the toss have decided to bat first at Adelaide against the mighty pace attack of Australians with the likes of Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazelwood and Pat Cummins. On the second ball of the match, Mitchell Starc strikes while removing the Indian opener Prithivi Shaw who edges the ball into the stumps to leave the score for 0/1. The next man walked in was Pujara who joined Mayank Aggarwal to stop further dents into the line-up and they have started very slow to build up the innings the first boundary of Indian innings came in the 21st over of a match.
The scoreboard was 32/1 in the 18th over before Pat Cummins strikes on the first ball of 19th over to clean bowled Mayank Aggarwal to give the second breakthrough to Australia and turn the scoreboard to 32/2 for team India. Then the modern day great Virat kohli who joined Pujara to rescue the team from the collapse. The pair added 68 runs for the 3rd wicket before Pujara got caught by Marnus Labuschagne at the score of 43 to turn the scoreboard to 100/3. Australia was at the top but Rahane and Virat Kohli put on another partnership of 88 runs for the 4th wicket and looked solid to score big runs. But one twist was about to come when Virat Kohli got run out at the score of 74 on Rahane call on the Nathan Lyon delivery. This wicket set the momentum of breakdown for India as from 188/4 to 244/10 it’s all into the shambles for the tourists. Mitchell Starc was the leading wicket taker who got 4 for 53 in his 21 overs spells.
Australian innings begins with Mathew Wade and Joe Burns who have added 16 runs in the first 14 overs before Jaspirit Bumrah caught Mathew Wade in the front of wicket to get the first breakthrough of a match. Very soon Joe Burns got out in the same fashion while getting caught in front of the wicket at the score of 29/2. Then walked in the crease Steve Smith to join Marnus Labuschagne. From here it had started the phase of dropped catches first Steve Smith dropped then Marnus Labuschagne dropped then one more time Steve Smith dropped by Kohli before another chance was dropped of Marnus Labuschagne. But with the addition of 16 runs on the board Ashwin picked up the wicket of match-winner Steve Smith who was caught by Rahane at the slip. Australia never recovered back and only managed to score 191 runs in their first innings. The major contribution was done by Tim Paine (73) and Marnus Labuschagne (47) for Australia. While for India Ashwin got 4 wickets which feature the wicket of Steve Smith. With the lead 53 runs in the first innings, the team India has started the second innings and once again lost the wicket of Prithivi Shaw who was clean bowled on the Pat Cummins delivery.
Brief Score :
India – 244/10
Australia – 191/10
India – 9/1
