Australia v India Third Test, Day Five Report Card

Featuring worrying first innings trends, momentum and the unrealised madness of Rishabh Pant

Worrying First Innings Trends
Grade: B-

Australia took the final India wicket early on the final day of the Test to conclude the not in any sense final innings. Cleverly, they took the wicket before the new ball arrived. An important point, because bowling India out in fewer than eighty overs prevented any potential World Test Championship over rate penalties. That’s the real game.

India all out for 260. It represented a worrying India first innings upward trend from an Australian perspective (150, 180, 260). Of course, there’s also a worrying Australia first innings upward trend from an Indian perspective (104, 337, 445). Frankly, the first innings in Sydney could be enormous, depending on your preferred method of extrapolation.

Before Australia could have a bat, however, play was abandoned for lightning as the Gabba continued to reach into its bag of weathersome tricks.

Big mistake, in my opinion. Why not play in the lightning. What are the odds that an actual lightning bolt will actually hit a player or umpire? And, even if it does, what if it turns out to be a magical lightning bolt that gives you the powers of Shazam?

The magical lightning bolt that gives you the power to recognise any song

Show some courage, ICC! (The courage of Achilles is what the second ‘A’ in ‘SHAZAM!’ stands for. You’d know that if you let the odd magical lightning bolt strike you. (Because it would give you access to ‘S’ - the wisdom of Solomon.))

Momentum
Grade: C-

The players had an early, non-superpowered lunch and resumed in the second session with Jasprit Bumrah, whose powers and abilities clearly stem from sources other than magical lightning, tearing through the Australian top order again.

He was assisted by Akash Deep, who also took wickets, as India’s most convincing batters did the job with the ball to have Australia 5/33.

Of course, Travis Head, Alex Carey and Pat Cummins then came out and gave the ball an almighty thumping, throwing their wickets away wildly on the way to a thrillingly mad 7/89d. Retroactively redefining the top order collapse as a charge for quick runs is great middle order teamwork. A side united.

Even a potential groin injury to Head was waved away in the aftermath of this crazy blitz. After all, if it’s a Head injury, they can always get a concussion substitute. Might I suggest a certain Glenn Tiberius Maxwell?

Still, a lot of commentators started pointing out the negatives of Australia’s second innings batting performance. Before this, one assumes, we are supposed to believe that neither team had realised that Bumrah was a new ball threat. Now, that fact had been laid clear.

A secondary criticism was that the innings had given India all the momentum going into the fourth Test, presumably not noticing the lack of impact that ‘momentum’ has had on any Test so far. If anything, ‘momentum’ has been detrimental - India blitzing Australia after a 0-3 defeat to New Zealand, Australia blitzing India after a first Test smashing. In which case, great lateral thinking from the Australian brains trust to relinquish this powerful negative force.

Think how close an Australian attack without Josh Hazlewood had come to forcing India to follow on and having enormous momentum going into Boxing Day. A bullet dodged.

The Unrealised Madness of Rishabh Pant
Grade: B+