Australia have dominated the ICC World Test Championship (WTC) final against India at the Oval so far. Despite losing the toss and being asked to bat first, the Kangaroos first posted 469 thanks to centuries from Travis Head and Steve Smith, they have then managed to reduce India to 151/5 at Stumps on Day 2. The situation could have been worse as captain Rohit Sharma, Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli, Cheteshwar Pujara all failed to make an impact with the bat and it was a partnership worth 71 off 100 between Ravindra Jadeja and Ajinkya Rahane that allowed them to make a recovery of sorts.
However, just when it had started to seem that the two can help India end the day on some sort of a high, especially from the situation they were in, Nathan Lyon bowled a special ball to get rid of Jadeja getting the southpaw out for 48. Soon after this dismissal, ex-India captain Sourav Ganguly took a dig at the Indian team management led by Rohit Sharma and Rahul Dravid's decision to not include Ravichandran Ashwin in their Playing 11 for the summit clash. Ganguly said that Lyon's delivery to remove India's "best batter" proves that India could have gone ahead with Ashwin the team, who was seen running on the field with drinks in this fixture.
"Who says off-spinner can’t play on a green pitch? Left-handed batter [Ravindra Jadeja] and Nathan Lyon. He has more than 400 wickets in Test cricket. At this moment, he dismissed India’s best batter. [It had both] Turn and Bounce," he said.
As far as the match situation is concerned, India still trail Australia's first innings total by 318 runs with Rahane and KS Bharat still out in the middle. A lot will depend on the partnership between the two, if India want to make some sort of a comeback into this game. The third day of the Test match will commence at 03:30 pm (IST) on Friday (June 9).