A red-hot India captain Jasprit Bumrah picked four wickets to scythe through the Australia batting line-up as the hosts’ reached 67/7 in 27 overs and trail visitors by 83 runs at stumps on day one of first Test at the Perth Stadium on Friday.
After Josh Hazlewood’s 4-29 bowled out India for 150, Bumrah made merry on a spicy Perth pitch by bowling at the absolute peak of his prowess – mixing accuracy and pace with deadly precision – to leave 31,302 spectators in the stadium spellbound through his spell of 4-17.
He was well supported by Mohammed Siraj taking 2-17 while Harshit Rana got a wicket on debut as India did well in bowling on stump to stump lines and good lengths. India’s counter-attack with the ball meant it marked a day of Test cricket where 17 wickets fell, all to fast bowlers. The last such instance of these number of wickets falling on day one of a Test match in Australia happened in January 1952.
India’s stellar show with the ball began when Bumrah trapped debutant Nathan McSweeney lbw with a fuller ball coming in with the angle. He could have got a wicket in the same over if Virat Kohli hadn’t dropped the catch of Marnus Labuschagne in slips.
Bumrah’s double strike came in the seventh over when he came from around the wicket and angled in a short delivery towards Usman Khawaja, who hopped to defend, but gave an outside edge to Kohli in slips. On the very next ball, Bumrah trapped a shuffling Steve Smith lbw on pads with a pacy in-swinger.
Travis Head tried stabilising things by hitting Rana for two fours, but the pacer had the last laugh by getting a length ball to just nip away from around the wicket and rattle the top of off-stump.
Though a struggling Marnus Labuschagne got off the mark on his 24th delivery, he was trapped lbw in front of leg-stump by Siraj, who also had Mitchell Marsh edging to a diving third slip.
Bumrah returned to have Pat Cummins nicking behind in a regulation dismissal to complete a four-fer, as Australia will look to Alex Carey (19 not out) and Mitchell Starc (six not out) to bail them out of trouble on day two after a gripping opening day of this year’s Border-Gavaskar Trophy.
Brief scores: India 150 in 49.4 overs (Nitish Kumar Reddy 41, Rishabh Pant 37; Josh Hazlewood 4-29, Mitchell Marsh 2-12) lead Australia 67/7 in 27 overs (Alex Carey 19 not out, Jasprit Bumrah 4-17) by 83 runs.
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