Rishabh Pant stands tall for India on opening day of drama-filled SCG Test

It turned out to be another tough day in office for the Indian batters as Australia started Day 1 of the Sydney Test with a bang. Jasprit Bumrah was handed over the captaincy as India won the toss and opted to bat first after Rohit Sharma opted out of the Test.

India lost the cream of their batting early as Yashasvi Jaiswal (10), KL Rahul (4), Shubman Gill (20) and Virat Kohli (17) were back to the pavilion without troubling Australia much.

It was eventually the partnership between Rishabh Pant (40) and Ravindra Jadeja (26) that saw India fighting back. Pant continued the resistance despite copping severe nasty blows from the Aussie pace quartet. The duo added 48 runs for the fifth wicket before Pant was finally removed by Scott Boland. Nitish Reddy, who scored a century in the last game, got out for a duck to complicate matters for India and from thereon it was only a descent into chaos.

Jasprit Bumrah did score a well-orchestrated 22 to push India to 185 at the end of the first innings. It was Scott Boland who led the charge for Australia with figures of 4/31 while he was aptly complemented by Mitchell Starc with numbers reading 3/49.

Australia only had three overs to bat for the day and wanted to play out the remainder without much of a fuss. However, just ahead of the last ball of the day, things went amiss with Jasprit Bumrah and Sam Konstas verbally going head-on against each other. The last delivery saw Bumrah spitting fire as a length ball took a nick off Usman Khwaja, the catch was pouched in the slips and the southpaw was on his way back.

Pumped up by the wicket, Bumrah and the entire Indian team channelled their aggression towards Konstas, who put his head down and walked back beside Khawaja - setting up what promises to be an intriguing Day 2 of the Sydney Test.

Brief scores:

India – 185 (Rishabh Pant – 40, Scott Boland – 4/31)

Australia – 9/1 (Sam Konstas – 7*, Jasprit Bumrah – 1/7)