India had a great day on the park at the Vidarbha Cricket Association Stadium in Nagpur on Thursday. Despite losing the toss, the hosts managed to stay in control of the match right from the word go. The Indian seamers removed the Australian openers early after which Ravindra Jadeja and R Ashwin cleaned up the star-studded Australian line-up. Jadeja finished with remarkable figures of 5/47 while Ashwin bagged 3/42 as India bowled out Australia for 177.
Marnus Labuschagne and Steve Smith were the best visiting batters on the first day of this Indian tour but it was Jadeja who got rid of them. The wicket of Smith, in particular, that came off a superb delivery. The batter played for the turn but the ball held its line. It got even the former India head coach Ravi Shastri excited. Shastri, who was the commentator when Smith departed off the bowling off Jadeja, went berserk and described the passage of his play in his characteristic style.
"Ohhh....He Has Cleaned Him... With An Absolute Beauty," he said on air. The BCCI even shared a video of Jadeja dismissing Smith. This clip was captioned: "That 𝐌𝐎𝐌𝐄𝐍𝐓 when @imjadeja let one through Steve Smith's defence! 👌👌."
Here is the video:
Meanwhile, Team India ended Day 1 of the Test match 100 runs behind Australia's first innings total with 9 wickets in their bag. Rohit Sharma scored a brilliant half-century and remained unbeaten on 55 at the end of the day's play. India were well on their way to having all wickets in tact at stumps but KL Rahul fell for 20 just near the end of the day's play.
Ashwin was then asked to see of the remaining balls of the day and he didn't precisely that, blocking out the final 5 balls of the last over of the day being bowled by Nathan Lyon and returning to the pavilion with the skipper.