A historic defeat for Australia, A historic victory for India! From 36 all out to a historic victory over Australia, retaining the Border – Gavaskar Trophy. The heartbeats, the emotions. The best of the bowling extravaganza and exhibition across Australia for over a month by both the Indian and Australian bowling line up. Cummins’s consistency and Pujara’s injuries! The Indian cricket team’s most active supporting staff being the physio during the matches to some unacceptable behaviour by some members of the Australian crowd.
Analysing the final test match day by day! Each day on a separate page!
DAY 1
It was a test match with a weather forecast which suggested that Day 1 might offer more overs than atleast the upcoming two days, and we started with bright skies as Australia, for the third time this season, stepped out to bat first. David Warner and Marcus Harris were the 3rd different opening – partnership. This partnership was facing a bowling line up, with the bowler, who has the most international test experience, also having just made his debut less than a month ago, versus Australia in the second test match of the series.
With such a bowling line up and the Brisbane pitch, it was expected that Australia, with the likes of David Warner, Steve Smith, and Labuschagne might sail through, and even Marcus Harris who brought in a bit of change by being a left-hand batsmen also not have a hard time, but David Warner became the victim of Siraj, again, in a similar delivery to that in the previous test match as Siraj bowled a ball across the pitch to outside off stump, a little closer to the batsman than the previous match. David Warner, on the final ball of the first over, faced a ball which did not swing, as Siraj was controlling the ball well, and even Harris had faced an unexpected delivery which did not swing. This ball did not swing towards Warner, and went on the angle path but caught the edge and Rohit Sharma gave it all, to confirm that the reward was reaped by diving forward.
This is less about David Warner, well, it does say that he was still not upto the mark, and misjudged the ball and played a defence which showed how he had not read the ball properly, but this is more about Mohammad Siraj, who kept his length and line consistent, and new where to target, with the right pace. This is something that the best of the bowlers can do, and Siraj has proved that he is no less. He kept the same strategy for Warner, but just bought it closer a bit due to the way Warner was playing this time around. Marcus Harris also faultered a bit, in his shot selection as he did not read the field properly and got caught out at point by Sundar off Thakur. The ball bowled by Thakur was just so beautiful, it swung towards the leg side right at the end and prompted the batsman to play a shot straight to the point fielder.
It was then again upto Labuschagne and Steve Smith to anchor the Australian innings. Out of the total of 369 that Australia made in the first innings, by the time they got all out on Day 2, out of that 144 was contributed by those two players. They score even better, and in more tandem when they are in a partnership because there seems to be this understanding and pressure on the bowling unit from both the players, as stated in the review of the third test match as well, But, the partnership was not there to be for long this time around as Steve Smith was the victim of a great delivery, which did not have the best of the spin or the best of pace, but was just given the required flight and line, in order to land it in the safe hands of Rohit Sharma. This was the wicket India were looking for right after the lunch break. Although, Labuschagne still gave a great performance and scored a century before getting out in the third session.
After the Smith wicket, Matthew Wade came in the middle and made no mistake in his this innings until that one ball by Natarajan and reached 45, just 5 runs away from a fifty. The Inian bowlers showed unexpected strength, resilience and talent at time and had Australia down by 5 wickets by the end of play on Day 1 but had also bowled such that Australia scored 274 runs at a run rate above 3 runs per over.
spielens 