Australia v India First Test, Day One Report Card

Featuring quantifying handsomeness, plummeting Test career catch proportions, kwik looks, somer-assaults, genuine dad all-rounders and faith

Quantifying Handsomeness
Grade: D-

The Border-Gavaskar series began, as so many have, at the toss, with captains Pat Cummins and Jasprit Bumrah leading their respective sides. Their quick-bowling dual skipperdom had many curious fans asking ‘when was the last time there was a Test where both captains were fast bowlers?’.

The boffins quickly came back with an answer. 2018, apparently. Which didn’t feel all that special. 

So, okay, statheads, when was the last time there was a Test where both captains were extremely handsome fast bowlers?

Now we’ve got a proper quiz. If only because it gets the nerds all bogged down in semantics, futilely trying to quantify levels of handsomeness. That’ll keep them out of our hair for a while.

Plummeting Test Career Catch Proportions
Grade: C

Bumrah won the toss and decided to bat, which meant that Australia’s debutant, Nathan McSweeney, would have to wait to open the batting. Infuriating for him, no doubt.

But could Cummins throw the kid a bone? Let him open the bowling, instead? Get the youngster into the match early?

No. Instead it was boring old Mitch Starc, who tried to Rory Burns Yashasvi Jaiswal with a delivery that pitched on leg stump. Alas, it went further away, evading Alex Carey and racing to the boundary for four byes to open the series scoring.

McSweeney had to settle for opening the catching instead, hanging onto a sharp chance at gully in Starc’s next over to send Jaiswal back to the sheds for a duck. 

At that point, McSweeney held the enviable record of having taken 100% of all catches in the Tests he’d played. An astonishing feat. One unlikely to be beaten. (Can somebody someday take 110% of all catches in the Tests they play? I dunno. Let’s get Glenn Maxwell back into the whites and see.)

Alas, for McSweeney, the record soon slipped away. Josh Hazlewood had Devdutt Padikkal out for another duck, and McSweeney’s Test career catch proportion slipped to 50%, a disappointing loss of form. 

Down to 33% it then dropped, the match turning into a nightmare for the lad when Usman Khawaja caught Kohli for 5, also off Hazlewood’s bowling. When KL Rahul was caught behind just prior to lunch for 26, it seemed cruel to track this statistic any further.

The lad had lost it completely by the end of the innings, parrying chances in the slips to Marnus Labuschagne rather than taking them himself. 

Back to the Sheffield Shield, Nathan. Work on this some more.

Kwik Looks
Grade: D

The KL Rahul wicket also gave us our first big ‘talking point’ of the series. Originally given not out caught behind, the Australians sent the decision upstairs. 

Up the decision traipsed, only to slide straight back down the bannister, clothes on backwards, with startling haste. For third umpire Richard Illingworth had taken a look at one poorly framed camera angle, seen a mark on Snicko, and decided he had other places to be, overturning the original decision.

The most startling aspect of this was that the Fox commentators had spent the entire first session banging on incessantly about the zillion cameras they were using for something called ‘Fox Halo’ (no, I dunno, either - I think it detects if an angel is batting?). So perhaps maybe wait for one of those camera shots to load? But no. There’s no time. You’re gone, KL. (The ‘KL’ stands for ‘Kwik Look’.)

It was one of the few successful reviews for Cummins, who, emboldened by Illingworth’s haste, made the T for a few speculative ones. (It is always a bad sign for a review when the team huddle disperses on the first replay.) Later, he would also ignore Starc’s pleas to send a gloved chance to the third umpire for a further look.

Frankly, if I were Pat Cummins, I’d play it smart and simply review the ones that are out and not review the ones that aren’t. 

(Sometimes I’d also review ones that the third umpire might give hastily before all the evidence was in.)

Somer-Assaults
Grade: A

When Mitchell Marsh resumed after lunch and took a couple of quick wickets, Rishabh Pant decided he. had. had. enough. of. this. nonsense.

Pant went on the counter-attack, launching an assault on the Australian bowlers. At one point, he even launched a somer-assault, somehow rolling onto his back as he scooped Cummins for an impish six.

Very normal batter playing a very usual shot.

Eventually, however, Pant not only lost his wicket to Pat, but also lost an ‘n’ to him, as India were bowled out for 150, and the Australians, briefly, looked very much the team on top.

Genuine Dad All-Rounders
Grade: B-

But only briefly. For, as the old saying goes, you never judge a pitch until Bumrah has unleashed a spell of unfathomable wizardry upon it.

That maxim held true once more, with the Indian skipper tearing through the Australian batting. Usman Khawaja, the wily veteran, sensibly spent the first three overs taking a single off the first ball and leaving silly old McSweeney to bear the brunt of the bowling. 

The new kid was soon gone for 10, LBW to Bumrah. When Khawaja then carelessly allowed himself to face up to Bumrah, he, too, was out, caught at slip.

Steve Smith, back at four after a brief dalliance in the McSweeney slot, came to the crease, and was out first ball, LBW to Bumrah, who now had 3/7. (Maybe time to drop back to eight, Smudge?)

Jasprit Bumrah, you, sir, are a nonsense. (Or, as we like to imagine his teammates threatening palindromically, ‘Harm U, Bumrah!’) 

Travis Head joined Labuschagne, and the pair briefly gave World Cup Final vibes, batting together after an early India blitz. But there was to be no drunken celebration-inducing century for Head this day, bowled by Harshit Rana for 11.

New father Mitchell Marsh was then dismissed for six. After his earlier bowling feats that had seen him finish with the figures of 2/12, this meant that Marsh now averages 6.0 with the bat and with the ball as a dad. He is on the brink of being a genuine dad all-rounder.

Faith
Grade: C

Amid all the carnage stood Labuschagne. He played and missed. He was dropped in the slips. He faced dozens of balls and scored no runs. He came perilously close to obstructing the field.

But he remained in the middle. 

Was Labuschagne, a noted Christian, the only one surviving this onslaught because of the new Fox Halo technology? Makes you think, doesn’t it?

‘What are these bowler footmarks outside leg stump?’ ‘That’s when Jesus was carrying you, Marnus.’

Eventually, however, Marnus was forsaken, LBW to Mohammed Siraj for a stirring 2 (52). Proper Test cricket. Proper batting. Proper Fox Halo work.

Cummins then joined Carey at the crease. As we all know, whenever Australia are in deep trouble, Cummins can be relied upon with the bat. He did it on debut. He did it in the Ashes. He did it in a World Cup semi-final.

Ergo, the fact he was caught behind for just three here means that Australia are not in as much trouble as the casual observer might think. 

BAD AI IMAGE OF: Cricket syllogisms

1. Pat Cummins scores runs when Australia need them. 

2. Pat Cummins didn’t score runs

3. Therefore, Australia don’t need them.

That’s basic logic, and a tremendous relief for Australian fans. Because without that reassuring syllogism, 7/67 at stumps might otherwise look pretty bad.

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