India vs Australia - 3rd Test, Day 1: Talking Points

Stumps are called on day 1 of the third test at the Holkar Stadium in Indore. Earlier in the day, Australia won the toss and opted to bowl first on what looked like a dry surface. It was an excellent day of Test match cricket for Australia as they dominate the proceedings against India on a rank turner and are well ahead in the match with a lead of 47 and 6 wickets still left in the bag. The pitch has been a square turned and batting has been very difficult, to say the least and it is only going to get worse as this test match progresses ahead.

Team India was bundled out for 109

India got off to a poor start, the Indian openers added 27 runs for the first wicket but once Rohit Sharma was out in an attempt to play a reckless shot in this rank turner and the collapse began. The spinners were getting a lot of assistance from the pitch and it was a testing session for the batters. Nathan Lyon and Matthew Kuhnemann broke the back of the batting lineup, as India lost wickets in clusters and were at 84/7 at Lunch. Virat Kohli and Srikar Bharat did add a few handy runs, but couldn’t negate the spinners for a much longer period. Umesh Yadav smashed a couple of lusty blows on his comeback to steer the team over the score of 100 runs. Mohammed Siraj was the final man to bite the dust as a miscommunication between him and Axar Patel ended the Indian innings. For Australia, Matthew Kuhnemann was the pick of the Aussie bowlers with the figures of 9-2-16-5, while Nathan Lyon picked three wickets.

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Khawaja contributed with a valuable 60 and takes Australia off to a solid start

In reply, Team Australia lost Travis Head early but Usman Khawaja saw off the difficult stage and chipped away with runs and won the second session for his team. Labuschagne and Khawaja played spin unbelievably well to take the team through to tea break without any further damage. Australia resumed the third session at 71/1 with Usman Khawaja and Marnus Labuschagne negating the spinners well. The duo continued to pile on the runs and added 96 runs for the second wicket. Ravindra Jadeja redeemed himself by dismissing the Labuschagne with Australia trailing by just 1 run. Khawaja was out playing the sweep against Jadeja. The quality left-arm spinner continued his good performance and Smith too was sent back to the dressing room by Jadeja.

Australia are in a commanding position at the end of Day 1

Australia were 156/4 after 54 overs at stumps with Peter Handscomb and Cameron Green keeping their wickets intact and have a handy lead of 47 runs. For India, except Jadeja, no one came close to picking a wicket and he finished the day with a four-wicket haul. Usman Khawaja attacked right from ball and played an outstanding knock for the Aussies. The Indian bowler were hitting the right areas, they beat the bat a lot of times but were unlucky throughout the day. Australia will look to add to the lead on day 2 and take the upper hand in the third and final test of this entertaining test series.