Amateur India hang tight despite Labuschagne ton

Onecricket


Brief Scores: Australia 274/5 (Marnus Labuschagne 108, Matthew Wade 45, Tim Paine 38*, Cameron Green 28*; T Natarajan 2-63, Mohammed Siraj 1-51) vs India

The dropping bug didn't even spare Ajinkya Rahane, arguably the tidiest customer in the cordon, who lent Marnus Labuschagne a lease of life on 37 to the chagrin of a second-string Indian attack that fared much better than it looked on paper. Perched on top of the run chart in the Border-Gavaskar series, Labuschagne leveraged his fortune to smother a sublime ton that wrestled the advantage back after India got rid of the top-order early. Notwithstanding his fifth Test century, the visitors kept punching holes at regular intervals to ensure they remain in the contest at the end of the opening day of the series decider at Gabba.

India had to put the pieces together given the spate of injuries and they handed debuts to T Natarajan and Washington Sundar and a second Test cap to Shardul Thakur, although Kuldeep Yadav's exclusion was bound to raise a few eyebrows as the chinaman was once proclaimed to be the team's frontline spinner on foreign soil. It didn't help their cause either that Rahane lost another toss, throwing an attack worth a total experience of only four Tests into the deep end at Australia's fortress. However, much to the surprise of all involved, the rookies aced the test in the demoralizing absence of Jasprit Bumrah, R Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja. Albeit, believe it or not, it wasn't the full stop on their incredulous injury woes as Navdeep Saini picked up a groin niggle and had to be rushed for scans. 

Mohammed Siraj dealt the opening blow to prize out David Warner in the very first over of the day in what was a replica dismissal of Sydney, the tendency to feel bat on ball spelling doom as Rohit Sharma dived across to his right to pluck a stunner at second slip. Natarajan shared the new ball and spare for some over-stepping troubles, wheeled away in nifty channels to tie one end down. The boiling urge to break the shackles saw Australia gift a wicket to Thakur as Marcus Harris flicked his first delivery of the spell straight to backward square leg. Both the openers back in the hut at 17/2, India were up against the genius and his shadow, Steve Smith and Marnus Labuschagne, who dipped their hands in glee given the naivety at their disposal. 

Thakur bowled nice and full in search of swing but indiscretions in control while doing so were met with cold-blooded whips and drives from Smith as he raced to 30 at Lunch, while Labuschagne bided his time to dawdle to an 82-ball 19. It was India's unerring discipline that prevented the duo from cutting loose despite the pitch being renowned for its conduciveness to run-scoring. Saini and Sundar were brought into the mix right before the break and did a fine job with those penny-pinching lengths as the first session ended on an even keel with Australia poised at 65/2. 

India had a monstrous foot in the door post Lunch with Sundar removing dangerman Smith to bag his maiden Test scalp as he whipped a full ball instinctively to short mid-wicket to depart for 37. He couldn't believe his luck and trudged off the field in utter reluctance as he knew there was a daddy hundred for the taking. Forthwith, Saini had Labuschagne steering to gully but Rahane's butter-fingers cost India a golden opportunity to put Australia under the cosh. 

Labuschagne, the beneficiary of the rub of the green on several occasions in this series, capitalized on the latest stroke of luck and raised his bat to a 145-ball fifty. He found an able ally in Matthew Wade, who went about his business with typical zest as runs came thick and fast to push India behind the eight ball. Thakur, in particular, struggled to contain the boundary flow with the ball losing its sheen and the track staying true to its reputation of a featherbed. The margin for error almost narrowed to zilch as Labuschagne punched and pulled with a touch of class to finally breach the three-figure mark for the first time in this series despite coming tantalizingly close to it on a couple of instances.

However, Australia's jubilation was marred in a jiffy with Natarajan raining down their parade to remove both the well-set batsmen in near-identical fashion. Wade fancied a nothing shot to his half-tracker to walk back unfulfilled for the umpteenth time five shy of a fifty before the centurion followed suit, miscuing a pull to leave plenty of runs on the plate. Natarajan's double whammy against the run of play propelled India into the driver's seat out of nowhere. 

Australia could have found themselves in a pickle had Thakur latched on to Cameron Green's firmly-struck bunt in his follow-through. India opted for the second new ball as soon as it was available but their new-ball merchants had run out of steam by then as Paine and Green thrived to forge a 61-run stand. Although the late flourish spared Australia a few blushes, their eventual scorecard of 274/5 versus a minnow of a bowling unit left a lot to be desired from the batting perspective. 

Powered by Froala Editor

Discover more

Top Stories
news

SMAT 2021: Abhishek Sharma, Virat Singh score centuries, Padikkal unbeaten 99 to make it left-hander's day

It wouldn't be wrong to say that today was a left hander's day in the ongoing Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy 2021 as not one but four left-handers in Jharkhand's Virat Singh, Punjab's Abhishek Sharma, Karnataka's Devdutt Padikkal and Bengal's Shreevats Goswami powered their teams to victories by some memorable performances with the bat. Virat Singh, who, only at the age of 23, has toiled in first-class cricket for six years making his debut in 2014, made a brilliant 103 off 53 balls hitting 12 fours and three sixes at the Javadpur University Ground against Assam. On the back of his hundred and some quick runs by Sourabh Tiwary and Kumar Deobrat at the death, Jharkhand set an imposing target of 231 to chase for Assam. Assam team, even after some brilliant shots from the young gun Riyan Parag couldn’t quite get the chase going and managed just 187 runs from their 20 overs, losing the game by a huge margin of 51 runs. Brief Scores: Jharkhand 233-3 in 20.0 overs (Virat Singh- 103 not out, Pritam Das-2/40) beat Assam 182-7 in 20.0 (Riyan Parag- 67, Monu Kumar- 3/23) by 51 runs. Check Full Scores here In a Group A game at Alur, Karnataka, Punjab’s Abhishek Sharma hit a scintillating hundred, making 197 off 62 balls with the help of five fours and nine destructive sixes. He was supported equally well by Prabhsimran Singh who scored 63 off 39. Courtesy of these brilliant knocks, Punjab set a target of 201 for the Railways who crumbled under it like a p[ack of cards, getting bowled out for a meager 83 and losing the game quite badly by 117 runs. Brief Scores: Punjab 200-4 in 20.0 overs (Abhishek Sharma- 107, Dhrushant Soni- 2/29) beat Railways 83-10 in 17.1 overs (Pradeep Poojar-15, Harpreet Brar- 4/22) by 117 runs. Check Full Scores here In another Group A game, much-fancied and much talked about before the tournament, the Uttar Pradesh team suffered a shocking defeat at the hands of Jammu Kashmir, their third in three matches. With this loss, the north Indian team is now out of contention of making it to the Knockout rounds. Suresh Raina tested another failure as he got out leg before wicket for a duck. Brief Scores: Uttar Pradesh 124-5 in 20.0 overs (Priyam Garg-35, Mujtaba Yousuf-3/14) lost to Jammu and Kashmir 126-2 in 15.0 overs (Abdul Samad- 54 not out, Mohsin Khan- 2/17) by eight wickets. Check Full Scores here Another shocker was in-store today as another much fancied and going pretty well side of Group C, Gujarat were rocked by Himachal Pradesh in the absence of their premium batsman Priyank Panchal. It was shocking in the sense that Gujarat, which prides itself on being an all-around heavy team wasn’t able to chase 142 at the Moti Bagh ground in Baroda. Brief Scores: Himachal Pradesh 141-5 in 20.0 overs (Rishi Dhawan 43, Axar Patel- 1/16) beat Gujarat 115-10 in 19.4 overs (Piyush Chawla-39, Vaibhav Arora- 3/16) by 26 runs. Check Full Scores here In the third game of Group A, Karnataka, who were beaten comprehensively in their last game by Punjab, beat Tripura today to compensate for it. Devdutt Padikkal was the star of the day as he hit an unbeaten 99. Brief Scores: Karnataka 167-5 in 20.0 overs (Devdutt Padikkal-99 not out, Rana Dutta- 2/41) beat Tripura 157-4 in 20.0 overs (Manisankar Murasingh 61 not out, Praveen Dubey-1/20) by 10 runs. Check Full Scores here Uttarakhand, one of the new inductees in the Indian domestic set up and played Plate Group games in Ranji Trophy in 2018 shocked another heavyweight Maharashtra which has in their ranks the likes of Kedar Jadhav, Rahul Tripathi, and Ruturaj Gaikwad. The team from the Himalayas beat Tripathi’s side convincingly by five wickets, with Jay Bista, the opener playing a brilliant knock of 69 of 51 balls to see his team through. Brief Scores: Maharashtra 141-4 in 20.0 overs (Kedar Jadhav- 67, Dikshanshu Negi- 1/16) lose to Uttarakhand 145-4 in 18.1 overs (Jay Bista-69, Shamshuzama Kazi- 1/15) by six wickets. Check Full Scores here In the two dull games of the day, expected winners in Tamil Nadu and Baroda downed Odisha and Chhattisgarh respectively. They earned the wins quite convincingly. While Baroda beat the Central Indian side by nine wickets, Tamil Nadu lost one extra while chasing 133 to finally win the game by eight wickets. Lukman Meriwala continued his brilliant form with the ball for Baroda as he returned with figures of 5/8 against the Harpreet Singh led Chhattisgarh. Brief Scores: Odisha 132-9 in 20.0 overs (Suryakant Pradhan-23, Murugan Ashwin- 3/16) lose to Tamil Nadu 136-2 in 15.1 overs (Narayan Jagadeesan- 61, Pappu Roy-1/32) by eight wickets. Check Full Scores here Brief Scores: Chhattisgarh 90-10 in 17.3 overs (Shashank Chandraker-20, Lukman Meriwala- 5/8) lose to Baroda 91-1 in 12.3 overs (Kedar Devdhar-44 not out, Sourabh Majumdar- 1/12) by nine wickets. Check Full Scores here In the only evening encounter of 14th January, home team Bengal downed Hyderabad by six wickets at the Eden Gardens. Shreevats Goswami was the hero with the willow scoring 69 not out off 48 deliveries and guiding his team home even as experienced blokes like Manoj Tiwary and skipper Anustup Majumdar went early. Apart from Goswami's batting, his wicket keeping was at another level altogether in this match as he took some sensational catches, one of it might make Subroto Paul or for that matter, even Gurpreet Singh stand up and clap. Brief Scores: Hyderabad 157-10 in 20.0 overs (Tilak Varma-50, Ishan Porel- 4/24) lose to Bengal 161-4 in 18.2 overs (Sreevats Goswami-69, T Ravi Teja- 2/28) by six wickets. Check Full Scores here

news

BBL10 | Match Report: Joe Burns take Heat to victory as Renegades run out of luck

It was once again a matter of luck combined with a lack of application from the Melbourne Renegades as they were beaten by a struggling Brisbane Heat at Manuka Oval Canberra in a BBL10 encounter. Experienced Joe Burns guided the Heat to the victory by scoring a 15 ball 31. With this win, the Heat have now reached fifth place in a tightly contested points table where only one point separates four teams in the middle of the table. Burns to the rescue The Heat were going well as two experienced campaigners in Chris Lynn and Joe Denly had built a 59 runs partnership timing the chase of 150 to perfection. But as soon as skipper Lynn fell to Kane Richardson, there was chaos in the Heat camp and within a span of 12 runs and 14 balls, four Brisbane batsmen had been sent back to the pavilion. Denly, Lynn, James Bazely, and Lewis Gregory, all match winners were back in the hut and the Heat still needed 33 from 23 balls with two new men in Burns and wicket-keeper batsman Jimmy Pierson at the crease. Instead of backing down to the terrific spin bowling from the Renegades, the Australian Test opener decided to take the attack to the opposition and hit Peter Hatzoglou for 12 runs in the 17th over bringing down the equation to 22 from 18. He then hit Noor Ahmed the Afghan left-arm chinaman for another 12 runs, reducing the target to 10 from 12. Eventually, he hit Kane Richardson for a four to the third man to seal the deal on the fifth ball of the 19th over. It was Burns’ 31 off 15 in which he hit four boundaries and a six that got Heat over the line in what was a tight match, albeit the scorecard unable to suggest so. Luck quotient: Lynn had plenty, 'Gades kept searching for it Luck seems to have deserted Renegades in this year's BBL as Lynn, who scored 50 off 40 balls was dropped twice, once at 22 and another time (though the ball did not reach the fielder, it was a catch nonetheless) in his 40s. If this was not enough, even after getting caught, he remained alive as the ball was declared a no-ball, not a front foot no-ball but a back foot one as Jack Prestwidge’s back foot just cut the white line of the crease. Although they tried a lot to make a match out of it, then young Hatzoglou Bowled short of length to Burns just when the pressure was mounting on the Heat in the death overs. Similar was the case at the time of the Bash Boost point. The heat needed 13 from the last over to win the Boost point, Noor Ahmed who had dropped Lynn in the last over was given the opportunity to defend it and he got swanked for a six via a damaging slog sweep by Denly, before straying down the leg to give three leg byes to fine leg and losing the Boost and a single point that the Renegades might have got. Webster gets Renegades' bowlers a total to defend Renegades, much like their previous encounters were once again found to be lacking in the batting department as after being sent to bat first by the Heat, they lost their top scorer Shaun Marsh on the very first delivery that he faced. Youngsters Mackenzie Harvey and Sam Harper tried to build a partnership, but that couldn’t last long either. Skipper Aaron Finch, who was pushed into the middle order continued his miserable run in the tournament as he went down for 13 off 13 balls. The ‘Glades were struggling at 59-4 when Beau Webster joined Jake Fraser-McGurk at the crease in the 9th over. The two then stitched together a slow but needful 58 runs from 51 balls. But just as they were thinking to accelerate Fraser-McGurk was picked by Mark Steketee in the 17th over. Prestwidge followed him as well, as not a single run was added for the next five deliveries. At that moment, Webster was joined by Imad Wasim who fed him strike at regular intervals. Utilizing the opportunity, Webster smoked 28 runs in just 12 balls to get to his much deserved fifty and also pushed the total to 149. He hit three fours and two sixes in his 40 balls 50 not out. What's next? Renegades will now travel to the MCG to play the all-important Melbourne Derby on 17th January while Heat will face the Scorchers in a fight for the Playoffs at the Docklands on 19th January.