The 3rd day completely belonged to the Indians, who quickly wrapped up aussies in the 1st hour, by taking the remaining 4 wickets by giving away only 38 runs. Jadeja had a role in all the 4 wickets that fell this morning. A great catch to dismiss Mitchel starc and followed it up by picking 3 wickets. A commendable effort by the bowlers to restrict the first innings lead to below 100 runs.
The confidence rubbed on the first wicket partnership in our batting too. Mukund and Rahul stitched a nice partnership of 39 runs, while every indian fan would have ideally wanted them to wipe off the deficit. Cricket is a game that has psychological aspect hidden in it too. The moment Indians wiped off the deficit with 9 wickets to spare, the dressing room and indian fans started to look at the test match as an one innings match. K L Rahul played a fantastic knock of 51 and he got out to a spectacular catch by Steve Smith, who has taken many blinders like that. The pitch did not look threatening at all, when K L Rahul batted. He proved that he grew up in this wicket right from his young days. His shot selection was much more refined and matured in his second innings.
Cheteshwar Pujara showed to the world, why such players are crucial for a test match. He might have several drawbacks, like he might never be a good runner between the wickets, but he has the quality to trust his technique in testing conditions like this. We could not forget his gritty hundred against Srilanka in foreign conditions. Today, he carried his bat through and remained not out by scoring 79 crucial runs for him as well as for his team. He had his chances, but he used his feat well to negotiate the turn and bounce. We pray that he would go on to get a match winning hundred tomorrow.
Virat Kohli was defeated by DRS and umpire Nigel Long gave him out LBW thinking that the batsmen did not hit the ball. DRS never questions the umpire's decision and there was not a conclusive evidence whether the ball hit the bat first or the pad first. It was unfortunate that on field umpire's decision had to stay on. Then came an important captaincy decision of promoting Jadeja up the order. Though it did not help india's cause, Kohli should be appreciated for taking such calculated risks in a test match. I do not feel that it was done with the intention of demoting Ajinkya Rahane. Kohli wanted to use the attacking instincts of Jadeja to unsettle Aussie bowling.
Pujara and Rahane stitched a 93* run partnership and ensured that india go wicket-less in one whole session. Bangalore pitch condition would get slower and lower as each day progresses. We have stretched the lead to 126 runs and if we bat well tomorrow and push it right till Tea on day 4, then we could put aussies into lot of trouble. The current batting pair of Pujara and Rahane, along with Karun Nair (the local lad), Saha and Ashwin should help the indians stretch the lead beyond 200 runs. Then the pyschological aspect would start to play its way in the result of this match, assuming indian bowlers would repeat the performance of their first innings.
One cannot get their eyes off, when we have this kind of an evenly fought test match....
No comments:
Post a Comment