When Mitchell Starc sent Cheteshwar Pujara packing at Pune yesterday, India was in some strife chasing Australia’s 260 in the first Test.
It was a brute of a delivery that reared, forcing Pujara to fend it off his glove, falling to keeper Matt Wade.
One of the many heavyweight India batsmen was gone, and in came the very best – Virat Kohli.
Two balls later he was gone as well, not troubling the scorers – it was the captain’s fifth duck of his Test career, and his first at home, caught at first slip by Peter Handscomb, chasing a wide Starc delivery.
Very un-Kohli like, but an emphatic scalp.
Little wonder the baggy greens were jubilant, both Indians averaging over 50 apiece in long careers were back in the shed for just six runs between them.
It was more than Australian skipper Steve Smith could have thought possible and those three deliveries from the big bloke may yet define the series.
Starc didn’t have the best figures by far, but the most telling.
The honours belonged to left arm orthodox spinner Steve O’Keefe, who opened the bowling with Starc.
O’Keefe was pretty ordinary in his first two spells, with bowling nine overs for 30 without taking a wicket.
But the next 25 deliveries devastated India, with O’Keefe grabbing 6-5 with a couple of maidens.
Nathan Lyon chipped in with a wicket, and the much-vaunted India batting lineup was out for 105, losing a record 7-11 in just 48 deliveries, leaving the home side 155 in arrears.
And Steve Smith has inflicted deeper wounds with an unbeaten 59, stretching Australia’s lead to 298 with six wickets in hand after only two days play.
Is there no limit to Smith’s batting machinery?
That took him to a tick over 1000 Test runs against India in 14 digs, at an average of 92.36, with four centuries, and four half-centuries..
If he can crack a fifth ton, and Mitchell Marsh on 21 not out, Wade, Starc, O’Keefe, Josh Hazlewood, and Lyon can make India chase 400-plus, what was deemed impossible pre-game could give the Australians a vital 1-0 lead in the four-Test series.
One thing for sure, Usman Khawaja will be a second Test starter at the expense of Shaun Marsh.
Khawaja should never have been overlooked in the first place, and Marsh’s 16 batting three and 21-ball duck opening up second time, is the end of the road.
Finally, let’s put the first dig Matt Renshaw “retired hurt” to rest.
For heavens sake he had a touch of the trots, and had to attend to nature rather urgently. What was he supposed to do, crash his creams in the centre? It’s far too bizarre to even contemplate.
Unless Allan Border had a cork handy, Renshaw had no other option but to depart, as embarrassed as he was at the time.
So it’s never happened before. So?
It has now, and hopefully in future the two umpires will not be so stupid as to argue whether Renshaw was to “retire hurt”, or “retire ill”, while the Queenslander was hopping around on the same spot, busting to be elsewhere.
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