On Day 1 of the Adelaide Pink-Ball Test against Australia, India’s difficulties were apparent; nevertheless, Cheteshwar Pujara saw some promise in KL Rahul and Shubman Gill’s performances. The pair pulled the team out of a precarious situation and appeared at ease during a string of batting collapses.
After winning the toss and choosing to bat, Mitchell Starc’s first ball to dismiss Yashasvi Jaiswal gave India a terrible start. But Rahul and Gill’s vital 69-run partnership for the second wicket helped to steady the batting. Despite their strong start, India was bowled out for 180 after Rahul was dismissed for 37 and Gill for 31. This was the start of yet another batting collapse. As he considered the innings, Pujara spoke of the two players’ strategy.
“They had very excellent intentions. They were very optimistic. They were pitching it high, forcing the bowlers to change their length. They were excellent, but they made the Australian bowlers go back off length, which is where I believe we struggled with tackling. With the exception of Yashasvi, the majority of our top order dismissals were KL getting out to a ball that was slightly rising and Virat getting out to a ball that was behind of length. Gil got out to a longer ball because he couldn’t decide whether to play or leave that ball,” Pujara said.
The back of the length balls were poorly tackled by us: Cheteshwar Pujara
But India’s problems resulted from the middle order’s failure to build on its early success. The team’s difficulties with back-of-length deliveries, which were demonstrated by the dismissals of stars like Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma, worried Pujara.
Therefore, we failed to adequately tackle the back of the length balls, which is crucial, particularly with the new ball. “I thought that middle order could have batted a little better with the pink ball,” he continued.
Starc exposed the Indian lineup with a superb 6/48 spell that took advantage of the conditions. A collapse was unavoidable despite a quick knock from Ravichandran Ashwin (22) and Nitish Kumar Reddy (42).
Australia was comfortably positioned at 86/1 at the end of the day, with a 94-run deficit. Although the hosts seemed to be in charge, India’s only wicket of the day came when Jasprit Bumrah dismissed Usman Khawaja. Bumrah handed the visitors early advantages at the start of Day 2 by eliminating Steven Smith and Nathan McSweeney.
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