India in trouble entering Day 3 at “The G”
Australia v India — Day 2, Melbourne
AUSTRALIA 474
INDIA 164–5 (trail by 310 runs)
Act One: Steve Smith — A Melbourne Centurion once more
From a Boxing Day of movies and beating my beautiful son at cards (but please don’t mention this to him as he was furious!) to a citadel of world football and Liverpool Football Club’s Anfield home enveloped by a Dickensian fog ripped clean from the pages of “The Hound of the Baskervilles” it was to another modern day sporting coliseum and “The G” of Melbourne and an early morning pep talk from Virat Kohli to his Indian teammates and a stern and inspiring lecture that clearly didn’t take hold. As I settled down with some raspberry jam on toast and nestled myself comfortably beneath a warming mound of duvets to fight away the effects of a bitterly cold English evening, I joined my jovial friends on FOX TV’s always excellent coverage but with one question burning at my cricketing soul:
Why wasn’t India captain Rohit Sharma giving the rousing early day speech?
Why indeed.
Regardless, two painful hours and 143 runs for the home team Aussies later, perhaps it didn’t matter who tried to rouse the Indian troops as they were sinking, and sinking fast.
From their overnight total of 311–6 Australia, in the guise of vice-captain Steve Smith and his skipper Pat Cummins, eased to their 50 run partnership in 40 minutes of play of 39 runs and without India laying a glove on them, they’d increased their team total to 350. Twenty or so minutes later, and from exactly 100 overs bowled, this was increased still further to a total of 371–6 with now almost a run-a-minute 60 runs added this morning and whilst Pat Cummins had brilliantly added 28 runs to his overnight not out total of 8, Steve Smith stood not out on 96 and on the precipice of a soon to be described “glorious stroke to bring up a glorious hundred” by Mark “Howie” Howard. 20 minutes and 28 runs later, and as my English Boxing Day had finally toppled into the Friday already 12 hours or so old in Australia, Pat Cummins “holed out” in the vernacular of this great game chasing quick runs and even whilst standing on his personal precipice of 49 not out. But in short order, Smith and now Mitchell Starc rattled 55 further runs to take Australia to an almost unbeatable already 1st innings total of 454–7 at the Lunch Break and as perfect morning’s go, Australia, and a rapidly filling Melbourne Cricket Ground, had just seen one.
Act Two: “The Captain gets the Captain!”
The afternoon session was a crazy affair perfectly epitomised by the first 40 minutes of play that saw both Mitchell Starc and Steve Smith dismissed back to the Pavilion within the first 7 deliveries received and with only a single run added to their pre-Lunch team total. Starc missed a straight one from Ravindra Jadeja and Smith managed to dance down the wicket, crash the ball into his pads before seeing the ball take a Shane Warne leg spin turn and back onto his stumps. Now we had the high entertainment of Scott Boland, the latest unrequited love of my cricket life, taking an extra two “lives” by overturning two incorrect on-field LBW decisions before Rohit Sharma was forced to call upon Jasprit Bumrah to return once more and quickly dispense with Nathan Lyon who, although challenging the LBW decision that was clearly out, walked from the field of play with both Boland and the Indian team, leaving the umpire to give him out even though there was barely a player left on the field at the time!
With Australia posting a 1st innings all out total of 474, India needed a stress free 70 minute spell up to the Tea Interval to stay in the Test Match and put in place in the building blocks for their response in the third session later today and throughout Day 3.
For 60 of those minutes they achieved it. But this hour long spell was bookended by the tame dismissal of Rohit Sharma (“The Captain has got the Captain!”) and with the very final delivery of the afternoon session, Aussie skipper Pat Cummins roared in one final time and produced an absolute beauty of a delivery that pitched toward leg stump before jagging off the Melbourne wicket, passed the defences of KL Rahul, and crashing into his off stump.
At 51–2 at Tea, trailing by 423 runs on 1st Innings and with Yashasvi Jaiswal 23 not out, India required a late afternoon rescue act.
They almost succeeded.
Act Three: Jaiswal and Kohli to the rescue, before late drama at “The G”
On a day where I seem to have been more preoccupied with time or spells or patterns of play (I blame the raspberry jam on toast or perhaps it’s the complete lack of sleep) Yashasvi Jaiswal and Virat Kohli not only set in motion the rescue act but firmly added a 100 run partnership with risk free cricket and glorious shots to all parts of the MCG and for over 2 hours of today’s final session they had serenely taken their team’s total of 51–2 at the Tea Break to 153–2 with barely 20 minutes left to play. But whenever Australia need a magical spell they invariably turn to local boy made good, and keeper of my cricket heart Scott Boland, and he was yet again at the centre of late day drama in his beloved home ground. The 35 year old was bowling when Jaiswal called Kohli for a sharp run that was never there and on 82 and looking yet another Test Match century squarely in the face, Jaiswal was stranded and standing next to his teammate at the wrong end as Alex Carey swiftly ran him out and if that wasn’t calamitous enough, 1 run and 7 balls later Kohli joined him back in the Pavilion after tickling a feathered edge from the bowling of Boland into the safe wicket-keeping gloves of Alex Carey. From a 100 run partnership and the solid building of a rescue act came 2 wickets in 7 balls for the addition of just 1 run and 8 Scotty Boland deliveries later came the coup de grâce of Akash Deep’s wicket for a 13 ball duck, the always pleasing reappearance of “Daddles the Duck” and India, from a position of relative strength entering Day 3, instead limped to the end of Day 2 stumps on 164–5 and still a long way distant 310 runs behind on 1st innings.
India resume in the morning with Rishabh Pant (6 not out) and Ravindra Jadeja (4 not out) and with only 5 wickets in hand they need at least the “Nelson” score of 111 runs to stave off the possibility of Australia enforcing the follow-on and really asserting their dominance throughout Day 3 of this Test Match.
The hero of Bay 13 and “The G” as a whole Scott Boland turned a magic trick once more and Australia head into Day 3 heavy, heavy favourites.
With just over 4 hours to go until play resumes in Melbourne, I sign off childishly excited as always and from a middle England still enveloped in a Dickensian fog from the warped imaginations of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Stephen King or James Herbert. Oh to be in the MCG instead!
“Scotty! Scotty! Scotty!”
Thanks for reading. Over the past boundary four cricket watching years I’ve turned my daily journals into a hat-trick of self-published books on the grand old game and should you be an Aussie or fan of the India cricket team reading this now, here are my second and third books which I hope will pique your interest in supporting an indie author:
"The Spirit of Cricket" - link to Amazon
"Tea and Biscuits in India" - link to Amazon
Whilst you’re here I may as well brag about the release of my two self-published books during December 2024. Both are free to read if you subscribe to Amazon Kindle “Unlimited” or reasonably priced in both paperback and hardback. Go on, treat yourself or a loved one and help out an Indie Author! Buy the books if you’re financially able to.
We HAVE to keep the spirit of reading books alive and well.
Thanks.
"My Ironbridge Summer" - link to Amazon
"still life, with gooseberry" - link to Amazon
Thanks for reading. I hope this message in a bottle in The Matrix finds you well, prospering, and the right way up in an upside down world.