The pitch in Perth has been challenging the batsmen more often than not. On the opening day, the visiting Indian team saw it misbehave and the Indian openers Murali Vijay and KL Rahul looked tentative for the same reason. While the former got a snorter from Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood showed he pavilion doors to Rahul with a brilliant yorker soon in the post-lunch session.
Team India faced back-to-blow earlier in their innings and now they need a steady partnership to get back in the game. Rahul was looking good as he was leaving the deliveries on length and trusting the bounce in the pitch. However, in doing so, he probably got habitual of staying on the backfoot and Hazlewood saw the chance of bowling a full-blooded yorker.
The first ball of the sixth over, Hazlewood ran in to bowl a toe-crushing yorker while the batsman at the other end was waiting for it to pitch and leave. But the length surprised the Indian opener and by the time, he would bring his bat down, the red cherry had breached his defense to hit the stumps. It was a jaffa from Australia’s modern-day Glenn McGrath and Rahul was clearly caught napping.
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Even KL didn’t trouble the scorers much by mustering only two runs after facing 17 balls and left India reeling at 8/2 early in the middle session of the day.
Here’s the video of the dismissal:
Josh Hazlewood wanted in on the action after lunch… #AUSvIND LIVE: https://t.co/wbNbTJzP8r pic.twitter.com/MMa8KuBlOG
— Telegraph Sport (@telegraph_sport) December 15, 2018
Meanwhile, Virat Kohli and Cheteshwar Pujara are fighting it out in the middle at the moment. The Indian captain has raced to the double-figure by scoring boundaries of both the wicket-takers, unlike the Adelaide Test where he had to work hard literally for every run. Pujara, at the other end, is playing the way he usually does. Though he has got some unplayable balls, India’s number three has gutted it out so far and this partnership will be crucial for the visitors’ chances in this game.
