India last tasted a home defeat in Tests in 2012 against England.
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India went to lunch 70-3 and got to 94 without further loss before O’Keefe, who had been largely ineffective during the morning session, swung control of the match to Australia.
India pace bowler Umesh Yadav’s six wickets in the match have seen him gain four slots to reach 30th rank. The hosts were 190 runs behind the visitors’ first innings total at the break. The 3 highlight performances by Mitchell Starc, Steve O’Keefe and the skipper Steven Smith outclassed India absolutely.
“I would say that we needed something like this for us to get a reality check and understand what are the things we need to work on, and keep persisting with it, not take anything for granted at any stage, especially at Test match level”.
Well, it had to happen at some time.
“He is a good tribesman and has played the game a long time”. A four-Test series does present an opportunity for quick course correction which Kohli and coach Anil Kumble are capable of producing.
It brings us to another important but unpleasant aspect of the game: introspection.
Fatigue, both physical and mental, becomes the obvious downside in a long home season featuring a world record of 13 Tests. They have not lost a Test match since 2015, when they lost to Sri Lanka in Galle. Even if the cricket pitch looks vicious, there were no explosives under it. The appalling fielding was a direct result of flagging minds and exhausted bodies. Let’s look at the preparation first.
A strong outing for Josh Hazlewood – who went up to 860 points – moved him to joint-second in the rankings for Test bowlers with Ravindra Jadeja. They must find a way to perk up quickly. They learnt the skills of negotiating spinners on turning tracks, something which I feel paid rich dividends and vindicated their development plan of grooming young up and coming cricketers.
Resuming at 143-4, Smith made India pay dearly for three dropped catches on the second day as he combined in useful partnerships with Mitchell Marsh (31) and Matt Wade (20). Jadeja kept pitching deliveries in line of the off and middle stumps and kept moving them away from Smith.
“He was getting a little bit angry at the fielders for dropping catches”, Smith noted after the match. And for a majority of this Test, the Indian spinners were second best to their under-rated counter-parts. It was great that we were able to get such a big lead and give our bowlers plenty to bowl at.”He took an indirect dig at former Indian spinner Harbhajan Singh for his taunt that this was the worst team to come out from Australia to this country”. Add to it, the disastrous usage of DRS in this entire Test and a second collapse in two days, and it doesn’t paint a pretty picture.
The highest successful Test chase was 418, achieved by West Indies against Australia in Antigua in 2003, when Shivnarine Chanderpaul and Ramnaresh Sarwan both scored hundreds.
If at all the pitch in Pune was doctored, then just by losing the toss, India had done themselves in.
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In a subtle way, Smith said that he is curious to know what kind of wicket will be prepared in Bengaluru.
