Lyon king bags Kohli to crown Aussies' day

The breakthrough win for which Australia's chastened men's Test team has striven over a barren and confronting nine months beckons tomorrow, with India facing a 175-run last-day chase without input from their inspirational captain, Virat Kohli.

The wicket of Kohli for 17, once again falling to the spin of Nathan Lyon, left his team 5-112 at the close of day four in pursuit of 287, and with no proven Test-level batting to further their resistance.

Given the intrigue and the intensity this second Domain Series Test has yielded, a remarkable last-day turnaround from India's lower-order can't be summarily ruled out despite its inherent improbability.

However, the combination of a pitch that carries more nastiness than exists between the fierce rivals playing upon it, and the failure of India's top-order including Kohli, makes the likelihood of Australia breaking a six-game winless streak to level the series 1-1 irresistible.

Particularly after India's final accomplished Test batter, Ajinkya Rahane, holed-out to point in the shadows of stumps to leave his team's pursuit sadly listing after a disastrous start.

Even according to the barely believable script played out through this Test, it was difficult to envisage Australia making a more emphatic statement than Mitchell Starc delivered in his opening over at the outset of India's innings.

With a stiff breeze whipping across his left shoulder, Starc landed his most devastating blow since the first act of the 2015 World Cup when he skittled India opener KL Rahul for a fourth-ball duck.

It wasn't quite the pure yorker that had flattened New Zealand captain Brendon McCullum in that one-day showpiece, but so seamless was Starc's loping strides, hooping in-swinger and late defection on to the stumps, the end result seemed almost pre-ordained.

Starc was mobbed by exultant teammates, but given Rahul's indifferent form of late the subsequent strike – when Josh Hazlewood had player-of-the-first-Test Cheteshwar Pujara caught behind – was the bigger prize.

Although clearly not the biggest.

Until Kohli's exquisite 123 in the first innings of this Test, which ended a string  of lean returns in Tests against Australia, a reasonable case could have been made that Pujara was the India batter most likely to underpin a final-day run chase.

But the captain's return to brilliance over the preceding weekend, coupled with the overt theatrics he engaged with during his battle with rival skipper Tim Paine, meant he emerged as the key to the game's result from the moment he entered the arena upon Pujara's dismissal.

For all his combative bravado, it was always going to take an act unmitigated genius for Kohli to reprise his first-innings effort on a pitch rendered even more tempestuous, against an opponent hellbent on excising their most potent threat.

Kohli played one authoritative stroke in his 40-ball stay – a sweet pull to the square leg boundary off Hazlewood.

But amid some acerbic on-field commentary about his character and ceaseless chirping from fielders gathered around his bat, he fell in the way he has six times previously in Test cricket – against the probing spin of Lyon.

To a refrain from keeper Paine to "hit the hole" – in other words, land the ball in the deep footmark directly in front of Kohli's off stump – Lyon landed the ball wide of his target, but near enough to Kohli to drag the skipper forward in a bid to smother any deviation.

Yet the ball maintained its path and caught the edge of Kohli's bat which was thus rendered mute after its talking heroics yesterday, with Usman Khawaja completing the low catch at slip.

Paine resisted the urge to communicate delight directly at Kohli, though the Australia team's newest member Marcus Harris embraced no such restraint as he voiced his thoughts to the departing batter while his euphoric teammates formed a tight huddle.

The removal of India's other opener Murali Vijay in Lyon's next over left the tourists teetering at 4-55, with Rahane's dismissal by Hazlewood opening a path to India's inexperienced middle-order and their lengthy tail.

At that point, 11 wickets had tumbled since the lunch break as a most compelling Test took another sharp turn.

On the evidence tendered during Sunday's evening session, when Australia's batters received a taste of the torment dealt every rival by the West Indies quicks of the 80s and 90s, batters were tipped to tumble from the outset this morning.

But with the previous day's low cloud replaced by undiluted sunshine, and India's bowlers armed with a ball already 50 overs worn, that was exposed as another fallacy.

Khawaja and Paine stood firmly resolute for the entire two-hour session and, while the 58 runs they found from 30 overs sent down hardly put the game beyond India's reach, they embedded themselves deeply under the tourists' skin.

Well, perhaps not the entire India team.

But demonstrably their combative skipper, whose frustration at not finding a way to split the obdurate Australia pair became obvious in his verbal sparring with Paine.

At one stage, as Australia's overall lead inched past 200, Kohli placed himself in his opposing captain's path as Paine completed a run, the combatants' chest-to-chest stand-off prompting umpire Chris Gaffaney to intervene.

“Come on, play the game,” the New Zealand official counselled. “You guys are the captains.”

Image Id: https://www.cricket.com.au/~/media/E4E6D91C3AF84454815DA08ADB58C2ED Image Caption: Kohli and Paine get close // Getty

So determined were Khawaja and Paine on preserving their wickets in the face of relentlessly disciplined India pace bowling that boundaries became an afterthought – just three were scored in the session as Kohli kept a tight leash on the fourth-innings target.

That assignment loomed as 300-plus when Australia ended the morning session 4-190, a lead of 233.

Then, like that troublesome uncle who overdoes the brandy trifle at Christmas, the pitch began to misbehave quite confrontingly after lunch.

It took just five deliveries for India to achieve what had proved beyond them in the preceding 180, as Mohammed Shami got a ball to fly at Paine's face and left the Australia captain little option other than to fend it up in the air.

To complete the first act of an unfolding melodrama, the catch was accepted by Kohli who chose not to pass comment but simply laughed uproariously as Paine headed for the sheds.

Kohli was maniacally more animated one delivery later when Aaron Finch resumed the innings prematurely foreshortened by a blow to his right index finger the previous evening, and fell to the first ball he faced.

The edge that Finch found to the Shami delivery that shot from the pitch like a skimmed stone off a frozen lake saw Kohli perform an unbridled jig with both fists clenched, as he goaded his men to kick down the door that had been unexpectedly prised open.

Six runs after that double-strike, Khawaja's bravely stoic defiance was ended by another snorter from Shami, which a batter in lesser form than the left-hander, who had survived 213 balls across more than five hours, might have battled to lay glove upon.

From eyeing a lead of around 300 at the break, Australia were suddenly at risk of leaving India less than 250 to chase and almost five sessions in which to get them.

But the difficulty posed by whatever target they faced became starkly apparent to India when Pat Cummins fell immediately after Khawaja.

The highly-credentialed lower-order batter, who's become so accomplished that he's averaged around 70 balls faced per innings in recent Tests, propped forward in textbook defensive mode only to find his middle stump tilted back.

The solace Cummins could take from his dismissal was that the ball from Jasprit Bumrah that bounced barely above ankle height would have taken out most of his Test peers who bat for a living.

 

Image Id: FD312C1B05664F99AA9042CBA663FFDF Image Caption: Pat Cummins reacts after being bowled // Getty

The escalating dangers posed by the fractious track even accounted for Lyon, who had proved immovable in the previous three Australia innings of this Domain Test Series.

Lyon was understandably unnerved by the short ball from Shami that he tried to pull, but which smashed into the protective grille of his helmet, mere centimetres in front of his nose.

Consequently, he was on the march towards square leg before Shami let go his next one and sliced a catch to deep cover as he swung lustily while in self-preserving retreat.

However, just as India's out-of-sorts opening pair were contemplating the grim reality of Australia's quicks bearing a new-ball on a pitch that had transitioned from medium-spicy to full-spite, Australia found some unlikely and hugely valuable late runs.

The 36 compiled against the odds by last pair Starc and Hazlewood not only pushed the final difference in the scores to 287, it carried Kohli to the brink of meltdown as the tailenders heaved and the bowlers strained.

When Starc – who, if employing Kohli's thesis to have his bat do the talking, needed a translator so often did he swing and miss – eventually failed to hit one aimed at the stumps, the pitch that had taunted the Australians suddenly became their friend.

By day's end, it loomed as their likely redemption.

Australia XI: Aaron Finch, Marcus Harris, Usman Khawaja, Shaun Marsh, Peter Handscomb, Travis Head, Tim Paine (c), Pat Cummins, Mitchell Starc, Nathan Lyon, Josh Hazlewood.

India XI: KL Rahul, M Vijay, Cheteshwar Pujara, Virat Kohli (c), Ajinkya Rahane, Hanuma Vihari, Rishabh Pant (wk), Ishant Sharma, Mohammed Shami, Jasprit Bumrah, Umesh Yadav.

Domain Test Series v India

Dec 6-10: First Test, Adelaide Oval, India won by 31 runs

Dec 14-18: Second Test, Perth Stadium

Dec 26-30: Third Test, MCG

Jan 3-7: Fourth Test, SCG

Australia squad: Tim Paine (c, wk), Josh Hazlewood (vc), Mitch Marsh (vc), Pat Cummins, Aaron Finch, Peter Handscomb, Marcus Harris, Travis Head, Usman Khawaja, Nathan Lyon, Shaun Marsh, Peter Siddle, Mitchell Starc, Chris Tremain

India squad: Virat Kohli (c), Murali Vijay, KL Rahul, Prithvi Shaw, Cheteshwar Pujara, Ajinkya Rahane, Hanuma Vihari, Rohit Sharma, Rishabh Pant (wk), Parthiv Patel (wk), Ravi Ashwin, Ravi Jadeja, Kuldeep Yadav, Mohammed Shami, Ishant Sharma, Umesh Yadav, Jasprit Bumrah, Bhuvneshwar Kumar