World’s best? Stung by spin again!

Subhash Rajta

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Tribune News Service

Bengaluru, March 4

So, the Bengaluru wicket has also turned out to be a turner. It’s not as vicious as the Pune wicket was, but it turned quite a bit for a first-day wicket. And India, opting to bat, collapsed against spin for the third time in as many innings; they weren’t as bad as in Pune but weren’t much better either as they ended up scoring just 189 runs. And this time they were destroyed by Steve O’Keefe’s spin partner Nathan Lyon, who picked up an astounding eight wickets.

From the way the Indians struggled against the off-spinner, it became clear that they hadn’t gotten over Pune. The terrible collapse in Pune has apparently put the fear of spin in their minds. Perhaps nothing demonstrates it better than the dismissal of Indian skipper Virat Kohli — just like he shouldered his arms to a Steve O’Keefe delivery in Pune, he made a error of judgement here against Lyon and allowed the ball headed straight for the stumps to hit him on his pads. 

Confidence dented?

That India’s confidence to deal with the Australian attack had been dented became clear when they dropped Jayant Yadav and brought in Karun Nair to strengthen their batting. A collapse justified their decision but it didn’t help much. From the very beginning, the Indian batsmen didn’t look comfortable. While Abhinav Mukund, who came in for an injured Murali Vijay, went for a duck, KL Rahul didn’t inspire much confidence with his methods. He kept reaching for the balls he could have left alone, tried sweeps and reverse-sweeps without much success and was dropped by Peter Handscomb off O’Keefe when on 30. The only saving grace was that he kept playing some good strokes in between all this, and India, at 72/1 with one over to go for lunch, seemed to have their nose slightly ahead. However, Lyon struck on what turned out to be the last ball of the first session to remove Pujara, and Australia wrested the advantage back.

Brainfreeze moments

India had a couple of brainfreeze moments in the second session, starting with the dismissal of Kohli. “There was nothing special about that ball... He made a mistake, we just got lucky there,” Lyon said later. Nonetheless, Lyon had gotten into a fine rhythm, suffocating the batsmen with consistent turn and sharp bounce from the rough created by Mitchell Starc. It was perhaps to unsettle him that Ajinkya Rahane charged down the wicket, but missed the line and was stumped. Nair, who looked the best among the home batsmen today, with 26 off 39 balls, made the same mistake against O’Keefe and was stumped.

Rahul, on the other end, looked far more compact and assured after completing his half-century. Although he was again dropped at 61, by Warner off Lyon in the slips, he did well to keep Lyon at bay. He eventually fell to the off-spinner for 90.

Lyon runs though tail

Having destroyed the middle-order, the lower-order was more like a walk in the park for Lyon. The all-rounders, who had done so well against England, were totally at sea against him. And it wasn’t long before he had all of them in his bag to walk away with amazing figures of 8/50.

And if that wasn’t bad enough for the hosts, the Australian openers made it even worse. They negotiated the 16 overs they had to play without any damage, putting 40 runs on the board. More worryingly, Ravichandran Ashwin couldn’t extract as much turn and bounce as Lyon did, and Warner was dropped by Rahane. If Ashwin and Jadeja fail to find enough bounce and turn tomorrow, the Aussies will be quite close to taking an unassailable lead in the series.

Scoreboard

India 1st innings

KL Rahul c Renshaw b Lyon 90

A Mukund lbw b Starc 0

C Pujara c Handscomb b Lyon 17

V Kohli lbw b Lyon 12

A Rahane st Wade b Lyon 17

K Nair st Wade b O'Keefe 26

R Ashwin c Warner b Lyon 7

W Saha c Smith b Lyon 1

R Jadeja c Smith b Lyon 3

U Yadav not out 0

I Sharma c Handscomb b Lyon 0

Extras: (B 12, LB 4) 16

Total: (All out; 71.2 overs) 189

FOW: 1-11, 2-72, 3-88, 4-118, 5-156, 6-174, 7-178, 8-188, 9-189

Bowling

M Starc 15-5-39-1

J Hazlewood- 1-2-42-0

S O'Keefe 21-5-40-1

M Marsh 2-0-2-0

N Lyon 22.2-4-50-8

Australia 1st innings

D Warner not out 23

M Renshaw not out 15

Extras: (NB-2) 2

Total: (No wicket; 16 overs) 40

Bowling

I Sharma 5-0-8-0

U Yadav 4-1-16-0

R Ashwin 6-0-11-0

R Jadeja 1-0-5-0

Numbers game

8 Wickets for Nathan Lyon in India’s innings — his 8/50 are the best figures for a visiting bowler in India. The previous best for a visiting team was 8/64 by Lance Klulsener of South Africa in Kolkata  in 1996-97

3 Seven-wicket-plus hauls for Lyon against India, the most by any bowler. This was Lyon's 4th 5-wicket haul in 12 Tests against India

58  Wickets for Lyon against India, the most by an Australia bowler. The previous record was 53 (Brett Lee) 

1977 Last time India were dismissed for less than 200 in three or more successive innings at home — England had then kept India below 200 in four consecutive innings

5 Times Pujara, Kohli and Rahane have been dismissed by Lyon in Test cricket

30 Wickets for Lyon against India's top-five batsmen in 10 Tests, third most among all spinners, after M Muralitharan (47) and D Underwood (40)