- Updates from the second day of play at the MCG
- Any thoughts? Email or tweet @GeoffLemonSport
41st over: India 100-3 (Rahane 14, Vihari 15) Rahane down the track for the first time, whips Lyon for a single but in the air through midwicket. Shouts of ‘catch’. Not convincing. Then Lyon produces huge turn, from outside off and it goes way down the leg side, past Vihari’s hip, away for four byes, but Paine doesn’t look unhappy. No chance of saving that but the captain sees that his spinner has weapons to work with. Vihari gets off strike, then Lyon bowls a fuller ball, again big turn, and it spits from outside off towards the top of leg stump, Rahane having to jam down and keep it out via a bottom edge into boot.
40th over: India 94-3 (Rahane 13, Vihari 14) Hazlewood carries on with his patience game, working away around the off stump. Rahane manages a single to the on-side, that’s the only score from the over.
39th over: India 93-3 (Rahane 12, Vihari 14) Lyon from the other end, and he’s probing away immediately. Turning it in at the pad-flap of Rahane. Two close catchers on the leg side, both wearing helmets. Head at short leg, Labuschagne at leg gully I guess you’d call it. Just behind square. Plus a regulation slip. And Paine behind the stumps. Rahane taps a run to cover, Vihari nurdles another. Lyon drops a little short and Rahane is able to pull a single to deep backward square where Starc charges off the rope.
38th over: India 90-3 (Rahane 10, Vihari 13) Hazlewood starts off after lunch, and he’s getting some outswing interestingly. Hangs the ball just outside Vihari’s off stump and finds out what it can do, tailing away. A maiden to start.
Quite the session of Test cricket. It was parry and thrust early, with Gill scoring while Cummins and Hazlewood looked dangerous. Once he was out things transitioned more to survival mode, with Cummins especially looking dangerous throughout. He delivered on that threat by picking up Pujara as well, but Rahane and Vihari have made it through the session and will resume with the chance to build.
They currently trail by 105 runs with seven wickets in hand. Very evenly placed.
37th over: India 90-3 (Rahane 10, Vihari 13) Last over before lunch. Vihari works Lyon away for a run. There’s some excitement from the last ball as Rahane edges towards leg slip, but that was controlled by Rahane to get the ball down. Lunch!
36th over: India 89-3 (Rahane 10, Vihari 12) Starc to Rahane, trying to slide the angle across and draw an edge, but the batsman is leaving. Picks up two runs from a straighter ball, flicked away, then opens the face and tries to glide a wider one but Green saves it with a sprawl at gully.
35th over: India 87-3 (Rahane 8, Vihari 12) Here is Lyon at last, should get two overs before the break. His first is all about giving it spin, turning the ball in, aiming at the front pad of Vihari, looking for a catch popped up on the leg side. Vihari comes down the track a couple of times, and has to be really careful to angle his bat and play over the ball, smothering it into the ground. No run.
34th over: India 87-3 (Rahane 8, Vihari 12) Starc bowls across Rahane and the batsman picks up an edge for four. Pushed at it really softly, gets the ball down and into the gap. Starc tries to tempt him by bowling wider, and Rahane does play at one but misses, then resists the next offering. Less than ten minutes to the break.
33rd over: India 83-3 (Rahane 4, Vihari 12) Hazlewood to Rahane, but can’t keep him trapped at the striker’s end for the whole over. Sends down one on the pads and Rahane can glance it away. Vihari played a really good long innings at the SCG against Aus A the other week. Different class of bowling but it showed a lot about his patience. Needs to do the same here, and is so far.
32nd over: India 82-3 (Rahane 3, Vihari 12) Starc into Vihari, hits him on the ankle swinging late, would have been missing leg stump and again he gets a leg bye. All the scoreboards have caught up with one another. Rahane clips a single to end the over.
Eighteen minutes to lunch. This has felt like a long session, it’s been tense throughout.
31st over: India 80-3 (Rahane 2, Vihari 12) Josh Hazlewood back on, still no spin, which makes decent sense given how well the fast bowlers have gone this morning. It is fairly special that you can generalise this bowling group as a fast-bowling attack, not as seamers or similar. They’re all right up there. A maiden, unsurprisingly, to Rahane who gets to leave a fair few deliveries.
30th over: India 80-3 (Rahane 2, Vihari 12) Now Rahane gets away, a short ball from Starc that he pulls to fine leg for a single. Starc’s first ball that wasn’t pitched up. When he reverts to that length he bowls too full, a swinging full toss that hits Vihari’s pad outside the line of leg stump and deflects for an extra. The TV scorers are still saying that Rahane’s leg bye was a run, while other sources are saying that Vihari’s leg bye was a run. Rahane now scores an actual run, his second, or third. Confused? Fair. The team score is what mostly matters, and we’re all in agreement on that.
29th over: India 77-3 (Rahane 0, Vihari 12) Green into a fifth over and Rahane finally gets a run, stabbed away for a single to midwicket. No he doesn’t, it’s called a leg bye. Vihari is hitting them better thus far, on-driving through midwicket for four, picking the gap nicely between that fielder and square leg.
28th over: India 70-3 (Rahane 0, Vihari 6) Here is Starc, wearing some noticeably red socks as he gallops in for his first over of the day. Left-arm over the wicket to a pair of right-handers, looking to swing the ball back in. And he gets the ball going very promptly indeed, drawing some exclamations from the cordon. Vihari sees a couple miss his off stump, then defends one well that was zeroing in on his front toe. Batting against this lot looks like very, very hard work.
27th over: India 70-3 (Rahane 0, Vihari 6) Green hits Rahane on the pad, huge appeal from the bowler but Paine gestures that it was probably clearing the stumps by two feet, which is an accurate observation. Hit up on the thigh pad and Umpire Reiffel shakes his head. Before that, Vihari picked up another triple, this time off the outside edge.
26th over: India 67-3 (Rahane 0, Vihari 3) Pat Cummins bowling his eighth over of the morning, he’s been going for an hour and a quarter. Mitchell Starc hasn’t even had a bowl yet. After all the tension so far it might be the plan for Starc to come in for some shock & awe. Lyon hasn’t bowled yet either. Rahane is facing, another maiden, including one that beats the edge.
25th over: India 67-3 (Rahane 0, Vihari 3) Cameron Green again, third over for him, I doubt he’ll bowl more than four on the spin, but it’s working nicely for him so far. Bowls a maiden to Vihari, giving him little to work with, pace still good too.
24th over: India 67-3 (Rahane 0, Vihari 3) Here’s Hanuma Vihari at No5, and he gets going quickly by driving Cummins straight for three runs. The two new players now need to rebuild.
Cummins into his seventh over, and gets the big one! Attacks the pads, cutting in. Pujara has to stab at the ball to defend, to protect himself from an lbw shout, and in doing so he gets just enough of an edge on it to make it carry. The ball would have hit the ground in front of Wade again, but this time Paine dives across his first slip and takes a one-hander just above the grass. Holds it in his right glove.
23rd over: India 62-2 (Pujara 15, Rahane 0) Green keeps cranking the speed up, into the 140s now. Just a single for Pujara in the over.
22nd over: India 61-2 (Pujara 14) Last ball of the over the wicket falls. Ajinkya Rahane is next in, ahead of Vihari who was listed 4 on the team sheet I thought.
Cummins carries on, a long spell for him this morning with his sixth over, and it bears fruit! Pitched up to Gill, scrambled seam, a bit of movement, Gill plays the way he plays and goes after the cover drive, and only succeeds in a faint edge. The Ox says yes, and Gill has to go. Played well, his runs have made this a very different equation to the 20-2 that India might have had with a more conservative scoring approach. Though maybe by this stage the best play was to see out Cummins and then start over.
21st over: India 59-1 (Gill 44, Pujara 14) First bowling change today, Cameron Green to come on. This could be pivotal. The Indian players may relax a bit, seeing a young all-rounder bowl. Gill especially might want to go after him, having seen him already in the tour matches for Australia A. But Green has skills, and may be able to draw a mistake he can capitalise on. Extremely tall, six-foot-eight, gets bounce and can reach the 140s in pace. Starts around 138. Lands the ball on the seam, moves it away. Lots of bounce. Lots of encouragement. Bowls on the pads, Pujara flicks square and nearly caught! Burns in that leg gully position that we mentioned earlier, and he does really well to potentially save four. Dives to his left and slaps the ball to a standstill just after it bounces. They run two.
But this is really interesting. Pujara and Smith, two of the longest occupiers of the crease in the game, and both have been caught at leg slip a lot in the last couple of years. It’s become a real trend. Smith in the first innings here, most recently, and in Adelaide. Pujara in Adelaide, and in Melbourne two years ago, among others.
20th over: India 57-1 (Gill 44, Pujara 12) Cummins to Gill, draws the edge but it costs him four. Gill goes softly enough at that to keep the edge down, and hits the gap in the cordon on the bounce. He’s not trying any big shots against Cummins for the rest of the over, defending from the crease to see it out.
19th over: India 53-1 (Gill 40, Pujara 12) Another Hazlewood maiden to Pujara. The bowler is using a line cutting in at Pujara quite consistently rather than bowling outside off, wonder what he’s trying to set up here. Short leg still in position.
18th over: India 53-1 (Gill 40, Pujara 12) Cummins to Gill, who is playing at everything. Steers to gully, no run. Straight-drives beautifully, but Cummins gets down and snatches the ball up in his follow-through, no run. Big swishing cover drive, misses, no run. Cut shot, straight to gully, no run. Eventually Gill writes off the over and plays a back-foot defence.
17th over: India 53-1 (Gill 40, Pujara 12) Hazlewood bowling, and Gill is looking to score. A trigger movement across his stumps, and that lets him drive a full ball off his pads though midwicket for a single. Pujara comes on strike, and just plays a little too early at Hazlewood, which is a rare deviation from technique. Because he pushes at the ball, the bat twists in his hands and the ball skews towards Head at short leg, but bounces wide. Pujara gets the soft hands going again next ball, and places it to midwicket. No run. Then Hazlewood bowls another beauty, coming in off the seam, beating the inside edge, and soaring over the middle stump by a few centimetres.
16th over: India 52-1 (Gill 39, Pujara 12) Pujara is back on Cummins watch. Gets a sharp bouncer that he goes under. But the couple of times that the bowling has got too straight, he’s been ready to score. Two more runs jabbed away off the line of his ribs. Cummins replies by beating the bat twice in a row.
15th over: India 50-1 (Gill 39, Pujara 10) And who needs Pujara to score when Gill is scoring so freely? Hazlewood bowls beautifully, gets the ball to deck back into him from back of a length, and again gets the inside edge, but this time for four! It flies well wide of Paine and away to fine leg. If Hazlewood can get that movement from a bit fuller, he’ll be thudding into the pads and beseeching the umpire. But the very next ball, as he pitches up, Gill drives him through cover for three! So positive. One ball after the error, puts it out of his mind completely and plays a positive shot. That brings Pujara on strike to someone else but Cummins for the first time today, and El Che flicks a straight ball square. He thinks he’s running two, but the younger Gill insists on three, calling loudly and pushing Pujara through. Love this attitude. Hazlewood has bowled three overs costing 6 runs, then his fourth cost him 10.
14th over: India 40-1 (Gill 32, Pujara 7) Cummins to Pujara, who edges in front of first slip! An interesting rejg to the cordon, with Wade at first and Smith at second. Where’s Joe Burns? Ah yes, he’s at leg gully. I think Wade hurt his knee last night chasing a ball and isn’t feeling so mobile. Pujara plays solidly through the rest of the over, no score. A good day for India is one with Pujara facing out a lot of maidens.
13th over: India 40-1 (Gill 32, Pujara 7) Shubman Gill on strike for the first time this morning, and he has the challenge of facing Josh Hazlewood under cloudy skies. First ball indicates that JH will be a handful, some swing into the pads of the right-hander that strikes him, but going down leg. Second ball, in the channel and going away off the seam. Third ball, decking in, inside edge and dropped! A big deviation from the inside, Paine is wrong-footed behind the stumps, has to dive back to his left and gets his left palm to the ball but isn’t in position and can’t hang on. He curses as he flicks it back towards the stumps. Fourth ball, flicked through midwicket for four! Gill will punch and counterpunch, and as he gets a straighter ball on a fuller length he takes full toll. India get past that 36 mark. What a contest. Gill sees out the over.
12th over: India 36-1 (Gill 28, Pujara 7) Cummins to start, and we go up to DRS with the first ball of the day! Perfect line from Cummins, has Pujara pushing forward, past the edge. Paine is convinced there’s a nick, his appeal is immediate. Cummins is less sure, same with the slips. But Paine goes upstairs on the evidence of his own ears. And he was right that there was a sound, but it happens to be the toe of the bat clipping Pujara’s pad. There’s a Hot Spot mark on the pad, and a slight burble on the soundwave graph, which a less experienced umpire would have given out. But Umpire Blocker Wilson up in the TV box says that it’s not a proper bat spike, and makes the correct call. As the standing umpire Bruce Oxenford had already done on the field. Drama to start.
The other part, of course, is the Australian bowling attack. The three quicks seem in fine fettle, and they’re doing something that very few groups of fast bowlers get to do: play match after match together. I think this is their 17th match together. Starc, Cummins, Hazlewood, and Nathan Lyon’s spin has been a big part of that too. He bowled outstandingly in the first innings at Adelaide. Do the home bowlers swing today in their team’s favour?
What are we looking out for today? Initially, it has to be the performance of Shubman Gill. It is pretty extraordinary that a player on debut walked in for the last few overs of Boxing Day, lost his opening partner within minutes, and then calmly decided to peel off five boundaries before stumps and race India’s score along by making 28 of the total of 36. He’ll resume today and could provide a spectacle.
Now, to local conditions. I am your eyes, your ears, your little goosebumps on your skin. We’re very close, you and I. It’s only of those blustery, moody Melbourne days. The day equivalent of a guy outside a bar who vaguely thinks he might fight someone but isn’t sure who or why. It’s hot and growing hotter, and there’s a lot of cloud overhead and some grumbly breeze. The forecast says it will grow hotter until the middle of the afternoon, then around that time or a bit later will come a cold change and some rain. So we may not have a complete day of cricket, but if we lose some time it should be a curtailment at the end rather than an interruption in the middle. Fingers crossed.
Once you’ve read the report, if you’d like to watch or hear about the first day in more detail, it so happens that a combination of me and Guardian cricket colleague Adam Collins took some time after play for exactly that. With bonus nice cinematography from Cameron Fink.
If you’d like to read a written report of yesterday’s main points, we have conveniently prepared one for your delectation.
Related: Australia's Mitchell Starc lands late blow but India on top in Boxing Day Test
As ever, communications at the Guardian OBO are open. We had a lot of cockle-warming correspondence yesterday from across the globe: people in Australia preparing for their day, people in the UK preparing to rest at the later end of their Christmas night, people in place in between. We’d love to hear what you’re up to, what your current few days involves, and what you’re making of the cricket. Email address and tweet thing are in the sidebar.
Good morning from Melbourne, hale tidings of the appropriate hour to wherever else you may be in the world. If Boxing Day is cricket’s Christmas, then today is cricket Christmas’ Boxing Day, the day after the big event. The 27th, day two. And as many people who celebrate Christmas prefer the day after to the big event, so do many people who celebrate the Boxing Day Test think that day two is the connoisseur’s pick: it’s less hectic, less crowded, more laid back. In normal years, that is, when the crowds might drop from 90,000 to 60,000. But this year, the first day didn’t have the full mad-carnival feel given the crowd limits, and it was perfect. Will today be more perfect still?
Perhaps on the field, where by the end of today we’ll know what we have in the way of a contest. The Australians were bowled out for 195 yesterday. 195! The pitch had life in it, bless the work of Matt Page and his team of ground staff. Wickets fell with regularity. We saw some wonderful bowling. India only lost one wicket by the close, and they currently have a fateful 36 on the board.
Continue reading...