Ind vs Aus: Indian players celebrating the mesmerizing victory
IND Vs AUS: India outplayed Australia by an inning and 132 runs in the first Test of the four-match series at the Vidarbha Cricket Association Stadium in Nagpur. Team dismissed Australia for 91 runs in the visitors’ second innings thanks to Ravichandran Ashwin’s five-wicket haul, Ravindra Jadeja’s two, and Mohammed Shami’s two.
Axar Patel’s 84 and Rohit Sharma’s 120 earlier helped India reach 400 all out and build a 223-run advantage over the visitors in the first innings. Despite taking seven wickets, Todd Murphy didn’t get the same strong backing from the other Australian bowlers. The game’s visiting captain Pat Cummins made the decision to bat first.
Steve Smith could only helplessly watch as wickets fell like nine pins at the other end. He tried delaying the inevitable without much success.
Mohammed Shami (2/13), after a solid batting show, put the final nail in the Australian coffin by trapping Scott Boland.
Earlier, Axar Patel’s resolute 84 and Shami’s entertaining 37 gave India massive 223-run first-innings lead. The hosts posted 400 by third-day lunch session after resuming the day at 321 for seven.
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IND Vs AUS: India takes a slapstick victory
Before Australia came out to bat for the second time, they wouldn’t have realized that they had lost it. On a pitch that the visiting media said was “doctored,” India out-batted Australia.
Jadeja (70) and Patel began the proceedings but the former did not last long as he shouldered arms to a Murphy delivery that was fired in from an angle and crashed onto the stumps. Shami, who was dropped on 6 by Boland at long-on off Nathan Lyon, decided to launch a swift counter-attack on opposition best bowler Todd Murphy (7/124).
Apart from a few of boundaries, he smashed the bespectacled off-spinner for three sixes: a low sweep over mid-wicket, a flat six over long-off, and a huge shot over long-on. Adding 50-plus runs in just over an hour (65 minutes) was laudable and Patel on his part gave Shami the bulk of the strike. If Australia had any chance of wrapping it up, Boland’s goof-up proved costly as Shami made them pay dearly.
Almost all the Indian batters found it easy to defend the veteran off-spinner off the backfoot.
Once Shami was dismissed going for his fourth maximum off Murphy, Patel decided to attack and lofted the debutant straight into the sightscreen for his first six.
