An aggressive strategy on a spin-friendly pitch proved costly for India as Australia reduced the hosts to 84 for seven at lunch on the first day of the third cricket Test here on Wednesday.
Like the first two Tests, the pitch was expected to favor the spinners a lot but the Holkar Stadium pitch showed a lot of turn in the first hour and kept the ball low on a few occasions which was a bit surprising.
Matthew Hayden, on commentary, described the black clay pitch as a third day pitch and it certainly behaved as such. Rohit Sharma (12), Ravindra Jadeja (04) and Shreyas Iyer (00) were dismissed trying to adopt an aggressive approach.
Virat Kohli (22 off 52 balls) looked in good touch but was tripped by Todd Murphy in the dying moments of the session. Left-arm spinner Matthew Kuhneman (3/14) and experienced off-spinner Nathan Lyon (3/23) picked up three wickets each. After winning the toss for the first time in the series, Indian captain Rohit decided to bat first as expected. Shubman Gill was included in the playing XI in place of out-of-form Lokesh Rahul, while Umesh Yadav was given a chance by resting Mohammed Shami. Australia included Mitchell Starc and Cameron Green in the playing XI, recovering from injury.
Starc troubled Rohit on swinging balls in the very first over. The very first ball took a slight edge off Rohit’s bat but Australia didn’t take DRS. Three balls later, an inside ball from Starc hit Rohit’s pad and this time also Australia did not resort to DRS, while replays showed that the ball would have hit the off-stump. Australia tried a spinner in the form of Kuhneman in the sixth over and he turned the ball quickly. Rohit missed the last ball of his over in an attempt to play forward and was stumped by wicketkeeper Alex Carey. Kuhneman then caught Gill (21) in the slip by captain Steve Smith.
, Cheteshwar Pujara (01) was bowled by Lyon on a fast-spinning ball from the off side after playing just four balls. The ball also remained a little low. Jadeja avoided lbw by resorting to DRS off Lyon but played the very next ball to Kuhnemann at short extra cover, leaving India at 44 for four. Iyer returned to the pavilion after playing Kuhneman’s ball on the wickets, due to which India lost half of its team in the opening hour itself. Kohli and Shrikar Bharat (17) added 26 runs for the sixth wicket. The couple was looking confident. Murphy once again dismissed Kohli. Bharat hit Murphy for a six but missed a straight ball from Lyon and was trapped leg before.
