Ravichandran Ashwin and Umesh Yadav bagged three wickets each on day-2 to bowl out Australia for 197 runs in the first innings allowing them to take an 88-run lead here at the Holkar Cricket Stadium.
Resuming the day at 156/4 Australian batters Peter Handscomb and Cameron Green batted sensibly and took their team’s first innings lead beyond the 50-run mark. The Handscomb-Green partnership was taking the game away from the hosts. They desperately needed a wicket and Ravichandran Ashwin did exactly that dismissing Handscomb caught in the short leg by Shreyas Iyer for 19 breaking the 40-run partnership at 186.
Handscomb’s wicket opened the floodgates for India as they ran through the Australian batting line-up. Pacer Umesh Yadav dismissed Cameron Green for 21 leg before wicket as Australia lost their sixth wicket for 188.
The Nagpur lad struck again in his next over cleaning Mitchell Starc for 1. Starc became Umesh’s 100th Test victim for Umesh on Indian soil. The pacer achieved this milestone in 31 matches to leave Australia tottering at 192/7.
India struck again in the space of four balls as Ashwin dismissed Alex Carey leg before wicket for 3 to leave Australia at 196/8.
Umesh Yadav looked unstoppable as he got his third wicket in the match dismissing Todd Murphy for a duck rattling his stumps to reduce Australia to 197/9.
Ashwin cleaned up Australia’s innings dismissing Nathan Lyon for 5 to bowl out visitors for 197 taking an 88-run lead in the first innings.
India started the second innings steadily as Rohit Sharma and Shubman Gill remained unbeaten on 5 and 4 respectively going into lunch with India at 13/0 trailing Australia by 75 runs.
Brief Scores: India: 109 in 33.2 overs in 1st inns (Virat Kohli 22, Shubman Gill 21, Matthew Kuhnemann 5/16), Australia: 197/10 in 76.3 overs in 1st inns (Usman Khawaja 60, Marnus Labuschagne 31, Ravindra Jadeja 4/78, Umesh Yadav 3/12, Ravichandran Ashwin 3/44); India 13/0 (Rohit Sharma 5*, Shubman Gill 4*; M Kuhnemann 0/3). (ANI)
