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| India staged strong comeback on Day 1 in Perth (PC: Cricket Australia) |
It was the perfect start to the Border-Gavaskar series 2024-25 where bowlers dominated Day one at Perth stadium since as many as 17 wickets were fallen. Jasprit Bumrah, who is leading Indian team in the absence of regular skipper Rohit Sharma won the toss and made a bold decision to bat first on the pitch where bowlers had a lot to say. Australian bowlers were right on the money from the start and made life difficult for the Indian batters as they gave nothing away. Yashaswi Jaiswal, who was playing his first match on Australian soil was the first batsman to get out on duck. He was picked up by Mitchell Stark who was in rhythm from the start. Padikkal followed soon and was dismissed for duck by Hazlewood who later picked all important wicket of Virat Kohli for just 5 runs. KL Rahul looked solid for his 26 runs only to get out in a controversial manner. He was not given out on the bowling of Stark and hence Pat Cummins went up for the review and the decision was overturned to out without definite evidence. India was reduced to 51/4 at lunch. Dhruv Jurel went soon after lunch followed by Washington Sunder who was selected over Ravichandran Ashwin. India was reeling at 73/6 when Rishabh Pant and debutant Nitish Reddy joined hands and played positive shots and showed a bit character to take India past 100 run mark. Both batsmen stitched 48 run crucial partnership to give India some total to fight with. Nitish Reddy looked confident in his first outing for India in tests and scored crucial 41 runs and Pant scored 37 runs in tough conditions. India was eventually bowled out for 150 runs. Josh Hazlewood was pick of the bowlers for Australia as he picked 4 wickets whereas Stark, Cummins and Mitch Marsh picked 2 wickets each.
Indian bowlers in reply were too hot to handle for Australia as Indian skipper for this match Jasprit Bumrah picked 3 quick wickets including an all-important wicket of Steve Smith who was dismissed for 0. However, he could have had Virat Kohli grabbed the catch of Marnus Labuschagne. However, debutant Harshit Rana got his first wicket of career by cleaning up Travis head’s off stump. Siraj then got Mitch Marsh in the slips and then ended Labuschagne’s struggle by trapping him in front of wickets. Bumrah then picked his counterpart Pat Cummins behind the wicket and left Australia lot to ponder at 59/7.
It is fair to say that India at the end of day’s play are in commanding position but that can change if they didn’t wrap up Australian innings soon as scoring runs on this wicket is hard. Wicket will get faster as the day will pass so any lead will help Indian team to further strengthen their grip over Australia.
Day 2 of First test will decide as which team is going to take a lead in this 5-matchseries. First session will be crucial for both the teams. India will look to take a healthy lead despite being wrapped up for 150 runs whereas Australia will look to reduce the deficit as much as possible. It will be interesting day 2 where tough cricket will be surely on display by both teams.
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