Travis Head continued to be a thorn in India’s flesh as Australia took command of the Pink-ball’ second Test in Adelaide on Saturday.
His counter-attacking 141-ball 140, which included 17 fours and 4 sixes, powered Australia to 337, for a 157-run first innings lead.
At stumps on Day 2, India were tottering at 128 for 5 in their second innings, still trailing Australia by 29 runs.
India’s batters struggled to find answers as the Australia quicks sizzled with the pink ball under lights, having half the team dismissed by the 21st over.
Rishabh Pant was the only stand out for India with a breezy 28 off 25 balls. He has a confident Nitesh Reddy, who was unbeaten on 15 off 14 balls at the other end, for company.
India lost KL Rahul (7) early in the second innings and Yashasvi Jaiswal (24) was done in by a peach of a delivery from Boland, who again struck with his first delivery that had a hint of late movement.
Boland then had Virat Kohli (11) caught behind after he got one to land right in the channel which has been troubling the Indian batting mainstay for a while now.
To make matters worse for the visitors, Starc knocked down Shubman Gill’s (28) middle stump, his late in-swing doing the damage and leaving India reeling at 86 for 4 in front of a record crowd of over 50,000.
However, unperturbed by the Australian inroads, Pant looked to be batting in a universe of his own and played some outrageous shots against the fast bowlers, leaving everyone stunned.
Least bothered by the fact that India were three down with not enough on the board, he danced down the track first ball and smashed Boland over mid-off for a boundary, and maintained that audacious approach until the umpires called stumps.
Earlier, thanks to Head’s eighth Test century, brought up off 111 balls after toying with India’s formidable bowling attack, Australia have a 152-run first innings lead as they look to restore parity in the five-match series after the 295-run hammering in the opener at Perth.
Head, who got off the mark with a cracking boundary off Jasprit Bumrah (4/59), got a reprieve on 76 as Mohammed Siraj failed to complete the catch despite getting both hands to it after the batter tried to slog-sweep Ravichandran Ashwin, having just smashed his third six against the off-spinner.
Amid the rejoicing around Head’s century at the Adelaide Oval, Siraj was rewarded for his discipline as he had Alex Carey caught behind following a faint outside edge with Australia’s lead crossing 100.
Desperate to prevent Australia from swelling their lead further, India took the second new ball the moment it was made available to them, and their lead pacer Bumrah too was brought back into the attack.
The ace pacer, however, pulled up and was seen holding his adductor muscle as the physio attended to him. Fortunately for India, he was up on his feet quickly and ready to bowl again, even as Head flicked him for two boundaries in between.
During his knock, Head played some incredible shots, including a pick-up six over Siraj over deep square leg, but the pacer had the last laugh as he brought his innings to an end when he cleaned him up with a yorker.
In all, Head struck 17 fours and four sixes.
Earlier, Rohit Sharma, giving his strike bowler Bumrah only four overs in the first session, was a bit strange, and so were some of his field placements. Then, in another surprising move, he started the proceedings after tea with Ravichandran Ashwin instead of the fast bowlers.
Luck, though, was with Ashwin as Mitchell Marsh decided to walk off despite a half-baked appeal by the Indian team.
Seeing Marsh heading in the direction of the dressing room, Richard Illingworth raised his finger too, but replays clearly showed there was a gap between bat and pad.
Unperturbed by all these, Head went about his task in the manner he does best — dictating terms to the bowlers with his free-flowing strokes.
None of the Indian bowlers, including Bumrah, looked like they could cause problems for Head.
Straight after tea, the aggressive left-hander employed a late cut against Bumrah to send the ball in the gap between gully and backward point. And he continued in same vein until he was dismissed.
This was after Marnus Labuschagne regained form with a composed half-century.
Labuschagne (64), whose place in the team was debated prior to this game owing to his prolonged lean run with the bat, registered his 26th half-century and then launched himself into a flurry of boundaries in what were worrying signs for India.
But promising all-rounder Nitish Reddy cut short his innings as the batter tried to guide him through gully only for Yashasvi Jaiswal to hold on to the sharp catch.
Looking to fight their way back into the game after Australia’s dominance on the opening day, India got an early breakthrough through Bumrah.
Playing in only his second Test after a forgettable debut in Perth, Nathan McSweeney had no answer to one of many excellent deliveries from Bumrah, which straightened a fraction after landing on the perfect length and all the batter could do was get a little nick while trying to defend after getting stuck on the crease.
Steve Smith’s poor run of form continued as the former captain got out in the most unfortunate fashion. Smith looked to flick a Bumrah delivery tickling down the leg side but only ended up edging it to the ‘keeper Rishabh Pant who completed a neat catch diving to his left.
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