India vs Australia, Cheteshwar Pujara on Travis Head: Veteran Indian batsman Cheteshwar Pujara criticized the Indian bowlers for failing to bowl short-pitched balls to Travis Head and giving him chances to score runs by bowling in his preferred off side. Left-handed batsman Head scored 140 runs in 141 balls, due to which Australia was successful in taking a lead of 157 runs in the first innings. In response, India has scored 128 runs for five wickets in its second innings by the end of the second day’s play and is still 29 runs behind Australia.
Pujara told Star Sports after the end of the day’s play, “Head’s weakness is short-pitched balls, which the opposition team knows very well. We saw that he was bowled only two-three short-pitched balls. (Indian fast bowlers) could have used it better.” He said, “He plays dominatingly on the off side and we needed to curb that. It would have been a better strategy for him to have five fielders on the off side instead of six.”
If we talk about the second day’s play, after taking a big lead in the first innings with an aggressive century by Travis Head (140), Australia scored 128 runs in the second innings on Saturday, the second day of the second test match of the five-match Border-Gavaskar Trophy. By taking five wickets, India strengthened its claim on the match. Head, who batted consistently well against India, did not allow the Indian bowlers to dominate by hitting 17 fours and four sixes in his 141-ball innings. After this inning of Head, the trio of Pat Cummins (two wickets for 33 runs), Scott Boland (two wickets for 39 runs) and Mitchell Starc (one wicket for 49 runs) performed brilliantly near the off stump in this day-night Test match. Line-length bowling did not give any Indian batsman a chance to stay on the crease for long.
To force Australia to bat in the second innings, India will have to score 29 more runs. Rishabh Pant (28) and Nitish Kumar Reddy (15) were present at the crease at the time of stumps. Head completed his eighth Test century of his career in 111 balls, which is the fastest century in a pink ball Test. Due to the brilliant batting of him and Marnus Labuschagne (64), Australia scored 337 runs and took a lead of 157 runs in reply to India’s 180 runs in the first innings. The Australian team, which lost the opening match of the five-match series by 295 runs, is close to making a comeback with a big win in this match.
In India’s second innings, Yashasvi Jaiswal (24) and Shubman Gill (28) failed to convert good starts into big innings, while experienced batsmen like Lokesh Rahul (seven), Virat Kohli (11) and captain Rohit Sharma (six) failed to score cheap runs. I returned to the pavilion. India lost the wicket of Rahul at the beginning of the second innings on the bowling of captain Cummins. After dismissing Jaiswal on his first ball, Boland also showed the way to the pavilion to Virat Kohli. Both these batsmen hit the ball outside the off stump and got caught by wicketkeeper Alex Carey.
Starc, the hero of the first innings, then uprooted Gill’s middle stump and took the wicket of this batsman for the first time in 13 innings. During this period, Pant hit aggressive fours in his own style. After going ahead against Boland and hitting a four over cover, he sent the ball to the boundary with a reverse shot. Young Reddy also scored a few runs with a confident cover drive against Cummins. India’s hopes in this match will rest on these two batsmen.
