Key events
5th over: Australia 19-0 (Warner 0, Khawaja 13) Shami hasn’t got his radar right so far. He’s spraying them wide of off and down leg but Khawaja isn’t tempted to flay at the former and can’t get a nudge on the latter. He’s climbing through the famous Delhi smog to get to the popping crease although I believe this is a “clear” day by normal standards, certainly not enough to delay play and have players don masks as the Sri Lankan players did in 2017! Khawaja clips a single from the last to retain the strike and keep Warner sweating on his first run.
4th over: Australia 18-0 (Warner 0, Khawaja 12) Siraj fires his first ball in full and Warner is forward, straight driving it down the ground. Smart fielding from Siraj to stop what seemed a certain boundary off his bowling. Or was it? Seems he’s split the webbing of his bowling hand. The Team India physio is running out for running repairs but after a short break Siraj resumes. After taking 38 balls to get past two runs in Nagpur, Warner hasn’t scored from his first 14 balls here. He’ll be sweating on a run to get off the mark. It shows as he plays and misses on the last. That’s a maiden by Siraj but he had to bleed a little for it.
3rd over: Australia 18-0 (Warner 0, Khawaja 12) Shocker from Shami! The ball slipped out the side of his hand there and he has the ignominy of waiting for the umpires to call it as a no-ball or a wide. It’s a wide and he follows it with one that gets past Srikar Bharat the ‘keeper to notch a fifth bye in just the third over. Khawaja cashes in on Shami’s troubles by rolling his wrists on the fifth and sending it to the fine leg rope. There’s a catcher there but he had no chance. Interesting stat from the first Test: despite all the talk of spin and the deployment of silly points and leg slips, none of the close-in men took a catch as 22 of the 30 wickets were unassisted. Final ball is another four to Khawaja. He has 12 from 11 already. Nice start for Australia. At this point in Nagpur both openers were back in the pavilion!
2nd over: Australia 8-0 (Warner 0, Khawaja 4) Huge appeal from Mohammad Siraj’s first ball to Khawaja! That was an inswinger and it moved a couple of inches in the air to skew off Khawaja’s inside edge. Great signs for India’s pace attack and danger signs for Australia’s batters already. However, when Siraj strays to leg ion his fifth, Khawaja takes that swing and uses it against India, clipping neatly off his pads and sending it flying to the boundary. Trademark calm and class from the 36-year-old in his 57th Test.
1st over: Australia 4-0 (Warner 0, Khawaja 0) Warner and Khawaja will open for Australia so that stymies the rumour Travis Head might replace him at the top of the order. It’s Mohammad Shami to open the attack from around the wicket and he sprays his first ball way down leg. Warner chases it but it’s too wide for him and too wide for the wicketkeeper too. Four byes! Second ball is bang on through and Warner moves tentatively to it but it shaves the outside edge. Four dots and then a huge shout for LBW. Onfield decision is OUT but Warner will review… NOT OUT is the call. Seemed the ball grazed the inside edge before it cannoned into Warner’s back leg. Close call!
The last Test on Delhi’s Arun Jaitley Stadium was in 2017, a high-scoring affair where Sri Lanka hung on for over 100 overs in the second dig to draw. Australia last played here in 2013. Shane Watson captained the side (controversially recalled after the Homeworkgate saga in the previous Test), fastbowler Peter Siddle smacked fifties in both innings and Glenn Maxwell opened the batting in the second dig! Three things should be very familiar though: both Ravi Ashwin and Ravi Jadeja each bagged five wickets and India won by six wickets. The glimmer of hope for Australia? Nathan Lyon got 7-94 and 2-71 in that Test.
So Matt Renshaw and Scott Boland have been dropped, replaced by Travis Head and Matthew Kuhnemann. No Cameron Green or Mitchell Starc named in the lineup. Pat Cummins will be the sole seamer in the Australia XI.
For India, just one change to the Nagpur XI with Shreyas Iyer replacing Suryakumar Yadav in the middle-order. Cheteshwar Pujara plays his 100th Test.
Team news
Australia XI: Khawaja, Warner, Labuschagne, Smith, Head, Handscomb, Carey (wk), Cummins (c), Lyon, Murphy, Kuhnemann.
India XI: Sharma (c), Rahul, Pujara, Kohli, Iyer, Bharat (wk), Jadeja, Ashwin, Patel, Siraj, Shami.
Coin toss
Australia skipper Pat Cummins wins the toss and opts to bat first.
Exciting news: looks like we will have another spinning debutant for Australia: 26-year-old Brisbane left-armer Matthew Kuhnemann has been selected for his first Test and will form a spin trio alongside Nathan Lyon and Todd Murphy. Travis Head has also been named to return.
It’s a big call on Kuhnemann who wasn’t part of the original touring squad and was only flown in when Mitch Swepson went home for the birth of his first child. And it’s a harsh call on Ashton Agar who played the fifth Test v South Africa in Sydney but has now been overlooked twice for uncapped players.
Kuhnemann has played ODIs for Australia for six wicket 31.8 and 13 first-class matches for 35 wickets at 34.8. Not exactly ‘storming-down-the-door’ stats but the selectors need something special so they’ve rolled the dice.
Preamble
Hello cricket fans, and welcome to Delhi for day one of the second Test between India and Australia for the Border-Gavaskar Trophy. I’m Angus Fontaine and I’ll be calling the action for you over what should be a fascinating day’s play.
Since Rohit Sharma’s home side crushed Pat Cummins’ men inside three days to win the first Test at Nagpur by an innings and 132 runs there’s been plenty of anger, confusion and theorising inside the Australian camp. There seems little doubt the visitors were out-bowled, out-batted and out-manoeuvred by India. Did they pick the wrong XI? Adopt the wrong tactics? Not prepare for subcontinental conditions sufficiently? Or did they simply have a shocker?
All of the above according to the critics. Allan Border reckons Australia were too “nice”, citing Steve Smith’s thumbs-up praise for India’s spinners while batting. And former India captain and coach, Ravi Shastri decried the “timid, almost un-Australian” fashion in which the men in baggy greens surrendered in Nagpur. At least everyone agreed that axing star batter Travis Head for Matt Renshaw (0 and 2) was a catastrophe and promoting Todd Murphy (7-124) was a masterstroke.
The lead up to this Delhi Test has been riven by debate: will David Warner (1 and 10 in Nagpur) be sacked? Will Mitchell Starc and Cameron Green be fit to return? Does Queenslander left-arm spinner Matthew Kuhnemann debut? And if so, do you drop legend Nathan Lyon (who took 7-94 at this venue last time) or first Test hero Murphy? Or do you pick three spinners and drop a paceman?
We’re about to find out. One thing we know for sure is if Australia lose this Test the Border-Gavaskar Trophy cannot be wrestled back from India for two years. It’s sunny and hot in Delhi and the pitch will be low and slow. The stage is set.
