Key events
53rd over: India 182-5 (Pant 23, Jadeja 5) Pant keeps going, pulling a single from Cummins. Jadeja finally gets a run! Rides the bounce and drops it off his hip to square leg. Then another false start with a quick run. Pant goes and is sent back by a yelping Jadeja. Jadeja tried that himself earlier.
Marcus Galanos on the email is after my heart. “The ball was struck forward of the stumps. The batsman on strike was running to the danger end. It was his call. Kohli clearly at fault. Why is no-one saying so?”
I assumed that plenty did. Not sure about the TV comms though, I didn’t hear any.
52nd over: India 180-5 (Pant 22, Jadeja 4) Smokes a pull shot! Pant moves along to the 20s by clattering Boland, then takes a single. Jadeja keeps blocking.
Guy Hornsby winds up the crank handle on the email machine. “Morning/evening Geoff. I’m somehow still up in darkest Sale in Manchester, full of port and cheese and wondering if Pant and Jadeja can actually save anything here. Their records suggest there’s a chance, but Pant is Cummins’ bunny of late and India must have felt an absolute gut punch after getting to 153-2 before the calamitous run-out. I’m not going to even attempt to apportion individual blame, just say it was a proper horlicks that took the wind out of India’s sails. Now it’s down to these two and a longish but bullish tail to see how much of a dent they can put into this huge Australian total. Perhaps Bumrah has made clear just how much of a rest he’d like after a mammoth series so far. We’ll find out soon enough!”
I can’t see anything about the run out except that Kohli had no business to be looking at the ball, and should have been looking at his partner. If there had been a direct hit at the non-striker’s, Jaiswal would have been the one run out. Kohli just turned that from a risk into a certainty.
51st over: India 175-5 (Pant 17, Jadeja 4) Quickly off strike, Pant, dropping and running. Jadeja gets a couple of short balls from Cummins from around the wicket, ducking one and Calypso swaying away from another. The bowler goes back over the wicket, keeping him thinking. No run still for Jadeja this morning.
50th over: India 174-5 (Pant 16, Jadeja 4) Pant kept strike with a single last over, and this time gets another chancy shot through the cordon. Couldn’t help reaching for width. They have deep third back though looking for a Pant miscue, so that stops the boundary. Jadeja gets sent back looking for a sharp single, then bails out of the next delivery as Boland delivers. “What’s up?” asks an annoyed Boland. Jadeja was late looking up from his feet.
49th over: India 173-5 (Pant 15, Jadeja 4) Whoooomph! Rishabh Pant does that thing he likes to do, from Cummins’ seventh ball of the day. Skips down the pitch and uses the momentum of the charge to flat-bat the ball over long on. Gets a lot of it, that nearly carries for six. Bounces just short. Then there’s a pause for a DRS replay as Cummins thinks that Pant might have gloved a rising ball while trying to get his hands out of the way. The forensic result is that it clipped Pant’s clothing.
48th over: India 168-5 (Pant 10, Jadeja 4) Huge crowd response as Scott Boland gets asked to open the day at the other end. Two left-handers to bowl to, and he too chooses to go over the wicket and with the angle. Jadeja is watchful to start. Boland comes around the wicket by the end of the over.
47th over: India 168-5 (Pant 10, Jadeja 4) A nice start from Cummins, hitting a good length as he angles the ball across Pant. One goes past the edge, another ball takes the thick deflection but rolls along the ground through the cordon for four.
It’s a blustery, moody sort of morning in Melbourne. Quite cool but windy in a way that hints at thunderstorms. There’s rain in the forecast, we’ll see.
Feel free to drop us an email, as usual. Let us know where you are and what you’re up to during the Christmas quiet week.
The story of yesterday for me was one delivery from Cummins to bowl KL Rahul, India’s best bat of the series. So here’s a whole piece about one ball.
Preamble
Geoff Lemon
What ho, cricket folk. We’re getting ready to launch into Day 3 at the MCG, with a potential record crowd to be had over the next couple of days, but only if India can hang on. They’re in real strife at the moment, 310 runs behind on the first innings with five wickets in hand.
Yesterday saw Australia push all the way up to 474, thanks to Steve Smith registering consecutive hundreds after his ton at Brisbane, and Pat Cummins supporting him with 49 runs of his own. India were in the game while Yashasvi Jaiswal was barnstorming along with Virat Kohli in support, but they upended that with a terrible run out, then Kohli lost concentration and chased a wide ball to get out.
The fifth wicket of the day was the nightwatch, Akash Deep, so India have Pant and Jadeja to resume today, with Reddy and Sundar as proper batters to come in next. The genuine lower order is only Bumrah and Siraj. Nonetheless, it’s going to be a huge job to get anywhere within proximity of Australia’s score. As in Brisbane, the first target will be to avoid the follow on, at 111 runs away.
All on the line today, at 1-1 in the series.
