Australia 86 for 1 (McSweeney 38*, Labuschagne 20*, Bumrah1-13) trail India 180 (Reddy 42, Rahul 37 Starc 6-48, Cummins 2-41) by 94 runs
At the other end, Rahul was more circumspect, bowling Cummins for three maidens. He then lost his patience and withstood Scott Boland’s first ball, which rose up to threaten the shoulder of his bat. Rahul moved away, thinking he had nicked him behind, but a forefoot pass from Boland earned him a reprieve. There was nothing on the Snicko either. Five balls later, Boland hit Rahul’s outside edge but Khawaja grabbed the opportunity at first slip.
Rahul’s luck, however, ran out when Starc returned for his second spell and struck with his fourth ball. He extracted one more bounce and had Rahul gully him for 37 off 64 balls. In his next over, Starc removed Virat Kohli for seven off eight balls with a similar prancing delivery. Soon after, Boland bit one off Gill’s pads as India lost 3 for 12 in a chaotic 15 minutes before the dinner break.
The crisis continued after the restart, with Boland this time pinning Rohit Sharma’s pads. Playing his first Test match in over a year, in place of the injured Josh Hazlewood, Boland kept it on a good length, or just back, and continued to glean movement from the seams. Rohit, who had slipped to 6th over to accommodate Rahul at the top alongside Jaiswal, lost 3 off 23 balls.
Cummins then joined the party when he bounced Rishabh Pant, with a length delivery that hit his ribs, for 21 off 35 balls. This meant so much to Cummins that he celebrated it with a great roar. The Australian captain had looked underpowered in Perth and wasn’t lively enough with the new ball on Friday, but redeemed himself with Pant’s big scalp.
After top-scoring for India in his first innings in Perth, Reddy did the same in the first innings in Adelaide, finishing with 42 from 54 balls, including three fours and a six. Reddy was the last Indian batter to be dismissed, with Starc moving him through mid-off.
R Ashwin, who was picked ahead of Ravindra Jadeja and Washington Sundar, looked good in his run-a-ball 22 before Starc made him look foolish with a perfect swinging yorker off a 39-year-old ball. The foot knock kept him out of the field for the start of the Australian innings, but India must have been relieved when he bowled the penultimate over of the day without any apparent discomfort.
Bumrah was powerful with the new ball and produced India’s only breakthrough on the day when he rounded the wicket and had Khawaja sting behind with a beauty for 13 off 35 balls. India were also fortunate to dislodge McSweeney cheaply when Bumrah also found his outside edge, but diving pants bombed him. Rohit, at his first slip, also couldn’t catch it on the bounce, with the ball hitting his wrist and falling.
Harshit Rana launched a few verbal volleys at the Australian batters and sent the pink ball down the field. But McSweeney was ready to fight fire with fire and pulled it firmly to mid-wicket for four. After seeing the new balls from Bumrah and Siraj at dusk, McSweeney took five fours off Rana and Reddy and set Australia up for a day of batting under natural light on Saturday.