India 180 and 128 for 5 (Pant 28*, Cummins 2-33, Boland 2-39) trail Australia 337 (Head 140, Labuschagne 64, Bumrah 4-61, Siraj 4-98) by 29 runs
Head had walked out to generous applause from his home crowd and into a bit of trouble in the middle after Jasprit Bumrah had taken out both Nathan McSweeney and Steven Smith in a space of 13 balls. While McSweeney nicked a Bumrah special behind to Rishabh Pant, after managing to add just one to his overnight tally of 38, Steven Smith was caught down the leg side for 2.
After the floodlights had blacked out twice on the opening day, Australia’s batting threatened to black out on the second afternoon. Head, however, had other ideas and torched the innings with his no-holds-barred approach. He played and missed four of his first nine balls, but that certainly didn’t stop him from playing his shots. He stayed true to his method of staying leg-side of the ball and cracking it away into the shorter pockets of the ground square on the off side.
He also cleared the longer straight boundary when he crashed R Ashwin over mid-off and then over his head for sixes, including a 110-metre monster hit.
Head scored his first fifty off 63 balls and took only 48 more balls to convert it into a hundred. He celebrated the landmark by rocking his bat like a baby in tribute to his family’s new arrival, with his wife among the crowd of over 51,642. A hug from fellow South Australian Alex Carey was also part of the revelry.
Indian fans would be sick of the sight of sight of Head by now. Since 2023, he has hit 1052 runs in 19 innings against India across formats at an average of 61.9 with three centuries, including tons in the previous cycle of the WTC final and 2023 ODI World Cup final.
Labuschagne got to his fifty off 114 balls and celebrated it by taking the erratic Harshit Rana for three fours in four balls. After having late-cut the taller, quicker Rana with ease, Labuschagne was caught at gully when he tried a similar shot off the shorter, slower pace of Nitish Kumar Reddy.
Head was more brutal on Rana, hitting him for 41 off 29 balls. It didn’t really matter what came down at Head. Short. Full. On the stumps. Outside off stump. Everything was dispatched.
R Ashwin’s only wicket was Mitchell Marsh but that was down to some good fortune. After shaping to defend a non-turning offbreak from Ashwin, Marsh walked off even before umpire Richard Illingworth raised his finger and didn’t even contemplate a review. There was nothing on Snicko, with replays also indicating that the ball had missed the outside edge.
Head attacked the second new ball as well, whipping Bumrah for a brace of fours. He then picked up Siraj for an imperious six over square leg in the next over, but Siraj struck back the next ball to york Head. Siraj released his pent-up emotions and gave Head a send-off that didn’t go too well with him or his beloved Adelaide crowd.
Siraj proceeded to dismiss Mitchell Starc and Scott Boland soon after tea to wrap up Australia for 337. Bumrah, who had gone down with some discomfort, which prompted medical attention, four balls into his spell with the second new ball, recovered sufficiently to knock Cummins over.
Cummins then took centerstage with the ball and cramped KL Rahul with a short ball for 7 off 10 balls. Just before stumps, he hit the top of Rohit Sharma’s off stump with an absolute peach.
Rohit had a rocky stay, having been struck on the helmet by his first ball, bowled by Starc. He was then bowled by the next ball, a hooping inswinger, but a no-ball reprieved him. Cummins rattled his stumps just before the close of play, with no error in the placing of his heel.
It was Boland who had prised out Virat Kohli by pushing a length ball on a fourth-stump line and drawing an outside edge from him. Boland had earlier struck with his first ball to dislodge Yashasvi Jaiswal for 24 off 31 balls. He has seamlessly slotted into the bowling attack and could pose an interesting selection question for the Brisbane Test though Josh Hazlewood is hopeful of returning to action for that fixture.
Starc not striking with the pink new ball in his first spell might be an outlier, but he came back with the older one to storm through the defences of Gill with his trademark inswinger.
Pant, however, continued to do Pant things. Despite wickets tumbling, he charged out of the crease and manufactured swinging room to his first ball and clattered it over mid-off for four. He then pulled out the reverse scoop and the falling scoop to counter Australia’s quicks briefly. He remained unbeaten on 28 off 25 balls.
India will need more of this from Pant and more support from Reddy if they are to somehow pull off another heist in Australia.
Deivarayan Muthu is a sub-editor at ESPNcricinfo
