Shubman Gill and Cheteshwar Pujara continued their onslaught on the Australian bowlers in the second session of the fourth test of the Border Gavaskar Trophy. Gill ended the session with a century in his name. On the other hand, Cheteshwar Pujara failed to read Todd Murphy and lost his wicket in the 62nd over.
India resumed their innings from 129-1, with Cheteshwar Pujara and Shubman Gill on 22(46)* and 65(119)* respectively. Both batters looked as if they would go on to chase the trail all by themselves. They faced everything that Australian bowlers had stored in their arsenal. Everything seemed ineffective in front of these two talented batters. Shubman Gill went on to score his second Test century and enjoyed ecstasy which only lasted merely for a minute. Cheteshwar Pujara was closing towards his 35th half-century but he became the first victim of Todd Murphy in the 62nd over.
Virat Kohli came in the final over of the session to face Nathan Lyon. It was definitely a moment when the tension seemed to mount up in the entire stadium. If India ended up losing another wicket before the end of the second session, Australia would have turned the momentum in their favour. However, Kohli managed to survive the final over. He almost ended up losing his wicket in the second last ball of the session. Kohli tried to play for the turn but ended up nicking the ball. However, fortune favoured him this time and the ball didn’t carry to the first slip. India ended the first session with a score of 188-2.
The first and second sessions for both teams were quite similar. Just like Pujara and Gill, Rohit Sharma and Shubman Gill began their innings on a quick pace as Rohit Sharma and Shubman Gill targeted Mitchell Starc to find boundaries on a consistent basis. Just like on Day-1 and Day-2 the pitch still held similar traits which made it easy for the batters to score runs. India dominated the Australian bowlers untill Matthew Kuhnemann held the ball in his hands.
Kuhnemann came in and got the wicket of Rohit Sharma in the first 11 overs of the day. The Australian bowler didn’t produce anything special to get the wicket of the Indian spinner. It was a ball which Rohit Sharma could have sent to the boundary ropes on any other day. But the extra bit of pace seemed to do the trick. Rohit’s cover drive shot sent the ball straight into the hands of Marnus Labuschagne, who didn’t flinch when the opportunity came to him. This wicket ended the 74-run partnership between the Indian openers.
In the second session, Todd Murphy ended a valuable 113 runs partnership between Puajara and Gill. In the end,
Australia would be pleased with their performance in the second session as they restricted India to scoring only 59 runs and got the wicket of a well-settled batter.
Brief scores: (Shubman Gill 103(197)*, Cheteshwar Pujara 42(121) and Todd Murphy 1/18) vs Australia. (ANI)
