Test Cricket: Bowling won Day 1’s play for both teams with India still leading top spot and the Aussies now thin on options with the bat after their unexpected top-order fall

by Sports Benches

Could you believe how the opening day turned out of the new Test summer against India? It was unreal through a whole seven hours worth of on-pitch work but couldn’t see that coming there when things can turn so fast in such short time.

We began the morning run (afternoon over in the Eastern states) with India winning the toss, chose to batted first and then lost their way up to a lowly 150 whereas Australia were outstanding with the ball & also on the field hands down thanks to their still stronghold bowling attack.

But when the Aussies got their chance to bat in the middle though in between tea and the late afternoon session, they too unfortunately unable to capitalise with lots of single and bare double digit figures — and somehow looks like India is still hanging in there up front at 67-7 going into Day 2. Shoutout to Jasprit Bumrah on another amazing bowling spell including a test debut to remember from Harshit Rama after he bowled out Travis Head. 

That doesn’t mean the Aussies have no reason why they cannot turn things around with keeper Alex Carey being the last best batter standing on 19 alongside fast bowler Mitchell Starc on 6. Let’s hope a 50 from Carey would do it to hopefully bring their bowlers back to more quick damage to the Indian batters if the Aussies can’t meet the 83 run trail sometime tomorrow. 

And last but not least, also want to give a shoutout to Nathan McSweeney, who also began his Test career today with some quickfire runs on the board as Test opener, with Usman Khawaja after an amazing impact – especially at Sheffield Shield level.

It’s a shame he was unluckily being picked on by Bumrah for 10 over his successful LBW review that was sadly fair by the umpire but he’s 25 and still has lots of time to make a David Warner like impact off his right hand though over the next few days & weeks to come – one to watch from our batters.

For now, looks like we will see more early quickfire moments on Day 2 tomorrow after a bowling dominant contest, with India set to bowl the Aussies out possibly under 100. Then the 2nd innings is on this time to maybe slow things down a bit to build a big score in the hope of going 1-0 up in the five-match (up from four now) Border Gavaskar Trophy series.

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