India hit a bump on day one in Adelaide as Australian bowlers make merry

It wasn’t one of the best days in office for Team India as Australia called the shots emphatically on Day 1 of the Adelaide pink-ball Test. Winning the toss, India opted to bat first but Mitchell Starc’s early dominion didn’t really allow the visitors to flap their wings.

India were jolted to a rude awakening as they lost Yashasvi Jaiswal on the first ball with Starc producing an absolute ripper. Despite Shubman Gill (31) and KL Rahul (37) building a crucial partnership for the second wicket, Starc came back strongly to get rid of Rahul and push India on the backfoot again.

From thereon it was only a landslide for Rohit Sharma and company as they kept on hitting one bump after the other. Rishabh Pant looked good for his 21 but Pat Cummins’ fiery pace proved to be too good for the southpaw. Nitish Kumar Reddy (42) and Ravichandran Ashwin (22) came together to help India push back the Aussie attack for as long as possible but it wasn’t enough.

Despite Ashwin falling, Reddy continued to battle alone and eventually was the last wicket to fall in the Indian echelons as they posted 180 on the board. Reddy blazed a warring 42 while Mitchell Starc spearheaded the Australian charge with six wickets to his name.

Jasprit Bumrah was the shining moniker of the Indian lot as he provided a crucial breakthrough in the form of Usman Khawaja (13) towards the latter stages of Day 1. However, from thereon, Australia rode high on the synergy of Nathan McSweeney (38) and Marnus Labuschagne (20) to push back the Indian battery. At the end of the first day, Australia totted up 86/1, trailing by 94 runs.

Brief scores:

India – 180/10 (Nitish Kumar Reddy – 42, Mitchell Starc – 6/48)

Australia – 86/1 (Nathan McSweeney – 38*, Jasprit Bumrah – 1/13)