australia 86 trails per person (McSweeney 38*, Labuschagne 20*, Bumrah1-13) India 180 (Reddy 42, Rahul 37, Starc 6-48, Cummins 2-41) 94 runs.
At the other end, Rahul was more cautious, playing Cummins for three maidens before stopping Scott Boland’s first ball to threaten the shoulder of his bat. Rahul walked away thinking he had been scratched at the back, but was given a reprieve due to a front-foot no-ball from Boland. There was nothing on Snicko either. Five balls later, Boland hit the outside edge of Rahul but Khawaja seized the opportunity at first slip.
But Rahul’s luck ran out when Starc came back for the second spell and hit the fourth ball. He extracted the extra bounce and forced Rahul to edge it into the gully to get 37 off 64 balls. In the next over, Starc got Virat Kohli for 7 for 8 with a similar prancing delivery. Soon after, Boland slotted one into Gill’s pads as India lost 12-3 during a chaotic 15 minutes before dinner.
India’s poor performance continued after the restart, with Boland this time pinning Rohit Sharma’s pad. Boland, playing in his first Test match in over a year in place of the injured Josh Hazlewood, maintained good length or seam movement slightly back. Rohit, who dropped down the order to number six to accommodate Rahul along with Jaiswal at the top of the order, got three off 23 balls.
Cummins then joined in on the fun when he got 21 off 35 balls with a length delivery that bounced off Rishabh Pant and pierced his ribs. This meant so much to Cummins that they celebrated loudly. The Australian captain looked underrated in Perth and wasn’t his sharpest with the new ball on Friday, but redeemed himself with a big scalp from Pant.
Reddy, who top-scored for India in his debut innings in Perth, did the same in the first innings in Adelaide, hitting 42 off 54 balls, including three fours and a six. Reddy was the last Indian batsman to be dismissed and Starc holed him out to mid-on.
R Ashwin, who was picked ahead of Ravindra Jadeja and Washington Sundar, looked good for 22 run-a-balls but Starc made him look foolish with an inch-perfect inswinging yorker off a 39-plus ball. A blow to his feet forced Ashwin off the field to open Australia’s innings, but India’s team management must have been relieved when he bowled his second match of the day without much discomfort.
Bumrah was potent with the new ball and produced India’s only breakthrough on the day when he rounded the wicket and had Khawaja stabbed in the back with a beauty that hit 13 off 35 balls. India also had a chance to dismiss McSweeney cheaply when Bumrah found the outside edge, but a diving Pant shelled it out. When Rohit initially slipped, he couldn’t catch the ball even on the rebound and the ball hit his wrist and fell down.
Harshit Rana verbally volleyed the Australian batsmen and hit the pink ball into the pitch. But McSweeney was ready for a shootout and pulled him firmly over midwicket for four. After seeing the new ball spell from Bumrah and Siraj in the twilight, McSweeney took five fours from Rana and Reddy to set up Australia for a batting day with the old ball under natural light on Saturday.
Deivarayan Muthu is a sub-editor at ESPNcricinfo.
