Watch cricket video highlights of India tour of Australia 2024. 2nd Test between Australia and India. Venue of the match will be Adelaide.
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Travis Head’s blazing century blasted India’s attack away on day two of the pink-ball Test, thrilling the Adelaide crowd. Head’s 140 off 141 balls extended Australia’s first-innings advantage to 157, leaving India with a difficult final two hours under the lights. The visitors fell farther behind when they lost half of their team during the time when the pink ball was at its most powerful. At stumps, India were 128 for 5, 29 runs behind the lead.
Head had stepped out to enthusiastic acclaim from his home crowd, but he was in some danger in the middle after Jasprit Bumrah had dismissed Nathan McSweeney and Steven Smith in the space of 13 balls. While McSweeney nicked a Bumrah exceptional behind Rishabh Pant, adding only one to his overnight total of 38, Steven Smith was caught down the leg side for two. The floodlights went out twice on the first day, and Australia’s batting threatened to go out on the second day. However, Head had other plans and burned the innings with his no-holds-barred attitude.
He played and missed four of his first nine balls, but it didn’t deter him from taking his strokes. He stuck to his strategy of keeping leg-side of the ball and cracking it away into the shorter pockets of the ground square on the opposite side. He also cleared the longer straight boundary by hitting R Ashwin over mid-off and then over his head for sixes, including a 110-metre monster smash. Head earned his first fifty in 63 balls and needed only 48 more to get it a hundred.
He commemorated the milestone by rocking his bat like a baby in honor of his family’s new birth, with his wife in the audience of over 51,642. The celebrations included an embrace from fellow South Australian Alex Carey. By now, Indian fans would have grown tired of seeing Head. Since 2023, he has scored 1052 runs in 19 innings against India across forms, averaging 61.9 with three hundreds, including tons in the previous cycle of the WTC final and the 2023 ODI World Cup final. On Saturday, Head began by adding 65 with Marnus Labuschagne, followed by 74 with Cary.
Labuschagne’s innings was as good as Head’s, but he needed to get back on track after scoring just 123 runs in his past ten Test innings, 90 of which came in one knock against New Zealand prior to the Adelaide Test. After being given some relatively easy leaves on the first evening, India’s seamers forced Labuschagne to play much more on the second afternoon. When they went too straight or into his pads, Labuschagne picked them off with crisp drives and flicks.
Labuschagne scored 50 from 114 balls and celebrated by taking the unpredictable Harshit Rana for three fours in four balls. After effortlessly late-cutting the taller, faster Rana, Labuschagne was caught at gully when he attempted a similar shot off the shorter, slower speed of Nitish Kumar Reddy. Head was more harsh with Rana, smashing him for 41 off 29 balls. It didn’t matter what came down on Head. Short. Full. On the stumps. Outside of the stump. Everything was shipped. Mohammed Siraj, on the other hand, provided India with some control and supported Bumrah.
Siraj took his first wicket in the game by extracting more bounce and coaxing an outside edge from Carey. R Ashwin’s only wicket was Mitchell Marsh, and that came because to good fortune. Marsh stepped off before umpire Richard Illingworth raised his finger to defend Ashwin’s non-turning offbreak, without even considering a review. There was nothing on Snicko, and replays showed that the ball had missed the outer edge. Head attacked the second new ball, whipping Bumrah for two fours.
He then picked up Siraj for an exquisite six over square leg in the following over, but Siraj returned the ball to york Head. Siraj let out his pent-up emotions and offered Head a farewell that neither he nor his beloved Adelaide fans enjoyed. Siraj then dismissed Mitchell Starc and Scott Boland shortly after tea to finish Australia’s innings with 337 runs. Bumrah, who had collapsed with pain and required medical care four balls into his stint with the second new ball, recovered enough to knock Cummins over.
Cummins then seized control of the ball, cramping KL Rahul with a short ball for 7 runs off 10 balls. Just before stumps, he struck the top of Rohit Sharma’s off stump with an absolute peach. Rohit’s stay was difficult as he was whacked in the helmet by Starc’s first delivery. He was bowled by the following ball, a hooping inswinger, but a no-ball saved him. Cummins rocked his stumps shortly before the game ended, with his heel placed perfectly. Boland had gotten Virat Kohli out by putting a length ball on a fourth-stump line and getting an outside edge from him.
Boland had previously struck with his opening ball, dismissing Yashasvi Jaiswal for 24 off 31 balls. He has smoothly integrated into the bowling attack and might provide an interesting selection conundrum for the Brisbane Test, however Josh Hazlewood hopes to return for that match. Starc not striking with the pink new ball in his first stint may have been an exception, but he returned with the older one to blow past Gill’s defenses with his signature inswinger.
Pant, on the other hand, persisted in his actions. Despite the wickets falling, he sprinted out of the crease, created swinging room for his opening delivery, and clattered it over mid-off for four. He then used the reverse scoop and the falling scoop to counter Australia’s quicks temporarily. He stayed undefeated on 28 from 25 balls. India will need more of this from Pant and more assistance from Reddy if they are to pull off another robbery in Australia.
