Subhayan Chakraborty in Adelaide
There’s a popular English proverb, “when the going gets tough, the tough get going”, and this perhaps suited Mitchell Starc best on Day 1 of the Day-Night Test against India at the Adelaide Oval on Friday. Starc finished with career-best figures in Tests, taking 6/48, helping the hosts bundle India out for 180. Perth wasn’t the best of bowling displays by Starc as he managed just three wickets in the course of the five-Test series opener while also conceding 111 runs in the second innings at an economy rate of 4.3. The Aussies were outplayed as India went 1-0 up in the series. With intense media scrutiny, talks of ‘divide’ in the Australian dressing room, and Josh Hazlewood missing due to a ‘lower grade side strain’, the pressure was on the Australians to bounce back, and Starc yet again took charge with the pink ball, claiming his fourth five-wicket haul in D/N Tests.
As the packed stands were warming up for the opening day of the match, Starc, with the shiny pink Kookaburra, steamed in and nailed a 140.4 kph outswinging full-length delivery to Yashasvi Jaiswal, whose trigger movement took him just too far across to the off stump. The young opener, who smashed a brilliant second innings century in Perth, was trapped plumb as the ball swung away after pitching on the leg stump line, and the southpaw registered his second duck of the series. The Adelaide crowd, thousands of them still in the alleys and corridors, erupted in massive cheers, perhaps the loudest of Day 1. Starc’s celebration, nerves popping out, muscles all pumped, and a roar of satisfaction, set the platform for the Aussie quick for the rest of the Indian innings. He also equalled West Indies’ Pedro Collins for the most wickets off the first ball of a Test match (three).
With Hazlewood, a workhorse with the ball, out for the Test, Starc took up the responsibility to bowl the maximum overs for the Aussies and even admitted to being cramped up a bit during the final phase of the Indian innings.
As KL Rahul and Shubman Gill were stitching a handy 69-run partnership, the highest for India in the first innings, Starc, after his first five-over spell, returned into the attack after a short breather. The speedster needed only four deliveries to break the stand as a rising short of length delivery caught Rahul by surprise. Although the Indian batter did his best to make the ball drop in front of the slip cordon with his soft hands, Nathan McSweeney was sharp enough to gobble it up at gully. Starc got rid of Rahul for the third time in as many innings in the series so far. With Virat Kohli flashing a boundary and a cover drive which fetched him three runs in the next over from Scott Boland, Starc banged it short on the first ball of his next over to dismiss Kohli cheaply. Starc banged it short, and Kohli, like the first innings in Perth, was late to withdraw his bat as the ball kissed the face of his bat to the hands of Steve Smith in the slips. Given Kohli’s staggering record at the picturesque venue, across formats, Kohli averaged 73.61 in Adelaide with five centuries to his name. To get rid of Kohli for seven was just the dismissal Australia needed to pile pressure on India.
After the dinner break, Starc started with just three overs on the trot as Nitish Kumar Reddy and Ravichandran Ashwin frustrated the Aussies with a quick 32-ball stand, only for Pat Cummins to bring Starc back into the attack. Starc drilled an inswinging 139.5 kph yorker to Ashwin to end his run-a-ball 22-run stand before completing his five-wicket haul by cleaning up his former KKR teammate Harshit Rana for a duck. All the talks of sledging to Starc by Jaiswal and Rana in Perth were put to rest, or at least this leg being won by the Aussie.
It was Starc’s first five-wicket haul against India in the longest format while also achieving his fourth in D/N Tests. Notably, no other bowler has more than two five-wicket hauls with the pink ball in Test cricket. Starc wrapped up the proceedings by dismissing Reddy for 42 while also bundling India out for 180. With his six wickets, Starc has now picked up 72 wickets in D/N Tests, the most by any bowler.
Starc was brilliant with the pink ball, bowling a lot fuller, attacking the stumps more than Pat Cummins or Boland. Even when he banged it short, it was more into the body or in the fourth stump channel to keep testing the Indian batters. However, the Indian pacers didn’t take any cues from Starc; apart from a few length or full deliveries, most were banged too short or were too wide, proving harmless for the Aussie batters. Barring Jasprit Bumrah, who tested the Aussie batters in the channel, neither Mohammed Siraj nor Harshit Rana were consistent with their line and length. The Aussie batters also rode their luck a bit as most of the play and misses completely beat the edge of the bat. Once Nathan McSweeney and Marnus Labuschagne, both under pressure after their torrid show with the bat in Perth, piled on more misery on the Indian bowlers, ending the day unbeaten on 38 and 20 runs respectively with an unbeaten partnership of 62 runs off 133 balls. Both of them were happy to leave the majority of the deliveries by the Indian bowlers. With the visitors failing to use the twilight phase, the windy night session with the new ball, it would be interesting to see what plans they have in their arsenal for the afternoon session, possibly the best session to bat, on Day 2 of the D/N Test in Adelaide.
However, at the end of Day 1 in Adelaide, with 1/86 on the board, the hosts and the home fans would be happier heading back to their hotels and homes.