Saturday, 5 January 2019

India vs Australia 4th Test Day 3: Kuldeep Yadav, Ravindra Jadeja spin a storm around Australia

On a day when the SCG was clad in pink to mark the Jane McGrath Day in honour of Australian pace legend Glenn McGrath's late wife, Marcus Harris and Usman Khawaja started on 24/0. The openers took the attack to the opposition and Australia soon raced past the 50-run mark. Khawaja succumbed to that positive approach and Kuldeep Yadav but that was the only blemish in what was a good first session for Australia. Marcus Harris showed once again that he belongs at the Test level. He reached a half-century for the second time in the series and looked primed for getting to a maiden Test century at Lunch. The latter half of the second session and the rest of the third saw the pitch providing assistance to the spinners and sure enough, Ravindra Jadeja and Kuldeep Yadav shared five wickets between them. Harris was the first one to go, chopping Jadeja's delivery onto his stumps. He had made 79 runs and Jadeja followed that up with a wicket of Shaun Marsh. Marsh, who had got off the mark with a sumptuous drive through covers for four, meekly hung out his bat to a delivery that didn't carry as much spin as he expected and gave Ajinkya Rahane catching practice at first slip. Australia continued their counter with Marnus Labuschagne and it was only a moment of collective brilliance from India that got him. Kohli moved Rahane to a squarish mid-wicket and placed himself to silly mid-on. Mohammed Shami bowled a fuller length deliver that came on to the right-hander's pads. As was the plan, Labuschagne went for the flick towards Rahane but the Indian vice-captain had to dive low to his right with almost no reaction time. He did so with aplomb and Shami got his solitary wicket. Travis Head, who had been Australia's highest scorer in this series before Harris overtook him on Saturday, attempted to slow the innings down with Peter Handscomb at the other end. He only ended up falling to Kuldeep, who took a good catch off his own delivery to get him. Captain Tim Paine and Handscomb ensured that Australia do not lose another wicket before Tea but the former did not last long in the third session. A bit of extra flight and turn for Kuldeep did the job as the ball spun through Paine's attempted drive and took the top of leg stump. It once again came down to Pat Cummins to shore up the Australian innings. While he has found Paine at the other end most of the time in the series, he had Handscomb to give him company this time. There were still 16.3 overs remaining when India unsuccessfully reviewed an LBW decision against Handscomb and the umpires then led the players back into the hut due to bad light. A Women's Big Bash League game that was being played about 8 kilometres away from the SCG had been washed out to due to a storm. The clouds soon arrived at the Test venue and Stumps were declared. Dailyhunthttp://www.feedbooks.com/user/4779782/profile

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