Australia managed to dominate the Indian team on day 1 of the third Test taking place in Indore after they restricted the Indians to just 109 runs in the first innings. Former Australian legend Adam Gilchrist feels Kangaroos have a lot to reclaim in the remaining two Tests even after losing the series.
“It’s been a tough series and they have been outplayed by India up to this point, so the series is done and they can’t win it but they can salvage a lot out of it. That’s the challenge. Look, Australia has come up against a very skilfull Indian team here. But there is no reason Australia can’t salvage something out of it. Of course, the World Test Championship is something that is on offer for both teams. So that makes it quite interesting,” Gilchrist told ANI.
The Indian team outplayed the Australians in the first two Test matches, courtesy to spin duo of India Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja. The Kangaroos’ batters were clueless while playing against the Indian spinners.
The visitors worked hard on their weaknesses and opted to play the game with three spinners. After being asked on what suggestion he would want to give the Australian spinners, he replied, “I won’t give any advice to the spinners because I can’t bowl spin.”
Earlier, Australia dominated a complete day's of play when they took on India on Day 1 of the third Test match at the Holkar Stadium in Indore. And unsurprisingly, it was their spinners who helped them achieve that. Matthew Kuhnemann's maiden five-wicket haul coupled with Nathan Lyon's 3 for 25 and Todd Murphy's 1 for 23 allowed the Kangaroos to bowl India out for 109 after they were asked to field first.
Kuhnemann's slow left-arm spin was too good on the day for the star-studded Indian lineup as he took the wickets of Rohit Sharma, Shubman Gill, Shreyas Iyer, Ravichandran Ashwin and Umesh Yadav to register his first-ever five-wicket haul in Test match cricket. It took Australia a little over a session to bowl out the Men in Blue in their home conditions.
In response, while India had got the wicket of Travis Head early, a 96-run stand between Usman Khawaja (60) and Marnus Labuschagne (31) had more or less ensured that Australia would take the lead and even though the Aussies ended the Day's play at 156/4 with all wickets falling to Ravindra Jadeja, the day completely belonged to the visitors, who had faced a lot of criticism heading into this Test match.