Australia must have begun the day with high hopes. Five wickets to get; a lead over 300; what could go wrong? Well now. The pitch has faded to straw-coloured macadam. And India bat deep, so to speak. Perhaps Pant will indulge in one of his absurd strokes and get himself out. Well, he did just that. It was half-ramp, half one of his acroballetic hook strokes. Straight after being hit in the breadbasket attempting a similar stroke. He was then well and truly baked by a number of luminaries of Indian cricket. Unfairly? Maybe. It might have gone for six on Indian grounds. As it was, Lyon took the catch not far in from the rope. It really is the way he plays. Would they have said the same for Konstas?
Nevertheless. Then Jadeja, who had been Patience On A Monument, was deceived by Lyon after a series of looped off-breaks and trapped in front by the faster arm-ball. A right-handed version in fact of so many of Jaddu’s own victims. At 7/221 the visitors were on a precipice. The problem for Australia was that numbers 8 and 9 are class batsmen, and they showed it. Washington Sundar hit a solitary boundary in his patient 50. And Reddy? It has been obvious to everybody except the selectors that he is India’s best middle-order bat all series, and ought to be no lower than no. 5. His century was richly-deserved, and Australia could do nothing about it except hope for a wicket at the other end.
Cummins toiled with might and main for his 3/86. Occasionally he managed seam movement where none was obtainable from anyone else. Boland was Boland: tight, economical, patient, and deserving. 3/57 off 27 overs on a bland pitch says it all. Lyon, given nothing much from the pitch, varied his flight and commanded respect. Starc toiled fruitlessly. At one point he sprayed the new ball wide of leg. Washington wafted at it as if dusting the mantelpiece. It took the back of the bat, curled behind the stumps and into the diving Smith’s hand, and out again. To be fair to Smith, it was a difficult catch he would normally take, except that when the ball is going down leg you would not expect a slips catch. You might as well expect it to play a sudden bagpipe sonata. Concentration in cricket must be zealously husbanded, lest it grow dull from overuse.
Finally with Reddy on 99 Lyon broke through Washington’s defence with the faster, flatter ball that turns and jumps, and Sundar edged it to slip. Cummins seized the ball and removed Bumrah with a fireball just outside off, edged to Khawaja at slip. Reddy completed his hundred with heart in mouth, knowing the combustible Siraj was all that stood between him and some unwanted red ink, and straight-drove Boland back over his head. Siraj made a couple, and then the rain came. Tomorrow? An unthinkable second draw on the trot now looms as a possibility. For this they can thank their all-rounders, none more so than Nitish Kumar Reddy. For Australia, lack of a proper fifth bowler cost them dear. Food for thought in Sydney? We hope so. Beau Webster awaits in the wings.