Australia v India Second Test, Day Three Report Card

Featuring knowledgeable Adelaide crowds, decision flowcharts and climate change victory songs

Knowledgeable Adelaide Crowds
Grade: A-

India resumed on the third day with Rishabh Pant and Nitish Kumar Reddy at the crease, a duo unafraid to have a wild, adrenaline-fuelled thrash that can turn a Test in the blink of a switch hit.

Hence, the disappointment when Pant sensibly left Mitchell Starc’s first delivery of the day, allowing it to pass safely through to Alex Carey.

Boos rang out from the knowledgeable, yet demanding, Adelaide crowd. ‘This is not what we paid our precious South Australian legal tender to see, Rishabh,’ they were effectively saying with every jeer. (Or maybe they’d just spotted Mohammed Siraj padding up in the dressing room. Impossible to tell.)

The knowledgeable, yet demanding, yet disappointed Adelaide crowd were even more infuriated when Rishabh Pant was caught at slip from the final ball of Starc’s over. They double-booed as the last hope for an India fightback trudged off.

But when replays showed the sensible work of Steve Smith, lunging from second slip to prevent the ball from reaching Usman Khawaja’s oft-fumbling hands, the double-boos turned to triple-cheers.

Knowledgeable, yet demanding, yet disappointed, yet fickle, yet appreciative of counteracting sloppy catching, Adelaide crowd.

Decision Flowcharts
Grade: C

From there, Pat Cummins put the ‘bounce’ back into ‘Australia bouncing back from a first Test defeat’, bouncing the living bejeezus out of the India tail, on his way to a five wicket haul.

So fearsome was the Australian captain’s barrage that Jasprit Bumrah reviewed a not out decision against him, ‘caught’ off the helmet at gully. Great stuff.

Sadly for Bumrah, the ‘not out’ decision was upheld and he was required to continue facing up to Cummins. This felt unnecessarily cruel. Why on Earth wasn’t Rohit Sharma declaring and protecting his strike bowler? Did he think Cummins was going to declare on his behalf? Somebody give these teams a flowchart of who is responsible for which decisions.

BAD AI IMAGE OF: Cricket decision-making flowchart

Climate Change Victory Songs
Grade: A-