As it happened: Australia vs India, 1st Test, Adelaide, day 2
Join us for updates, analysis and colour from the second day of the pink-ball Test in Adelaide
10.00pm: India's day
9.15pm: Time for neutral umpires to be back?
On TV, Shane Warne has not spared Bruce Oxenford for a couple decisions the Australian on-field umpire has made so far this Test. The first one came during Indian innings when Oxenford signaled a short run when replays clearly indicated Virat Kohli's bat had actually crossed the crease line. Today Oxenford ruled Nathan Lyon lbw despite there being a thick inside edge.
Warne, who sits on the MCC World Cricket Committee, was blunt in saying on air he felt Oxenford cannot officiate if he made such mistakes. However, the more subjective issue at hand for the ICC to discuss is whether neutral umpires should return to Test matches during the pandemic.
One of the interim rules that the ICC has tweaked during the pandemic is to allow home umpires to stand in home engagements. That is the reason Oxenford has been standing this Test along with fellow Australian Paul Reiffel. Incidentally Reiffel had reversed one of his decisions on Friday when he ruled Marnus Labuschagne caught behind when there was no nick.
Recently West Indies white-ball captain Kieron Pollard admitted he was not pleased with the umpiring during the T20 series in New Zealand. Pollard's team-mate Jason Holder, the West Indies' Test captain, said if players were making the by staying in quarantine he did not see why the neutral umpires could not do the same.
8.45pm: Captain's innings
8.00pm: Yadav adds to Australia's woes
Yadav was the second-best bowler in the only day-night Test India played before this one, one wicket behind Ishant's match haul of nine against Bangladesh. He has always been recognised as the fourth seamer in the Indian pace attack. I was speaking with Ishant earlier this week and he said Yadav was ready replacement for him. Key for him has always been pace and ability to reverse.
In a recent Cricket Monthly interview, Jason Gillespie said: "I'm a big fan of Umesh Yadav - he has that pace and aggression. So I tend to think that's the way India will go. No disrespect to the other guys, but [India] will go with Yadav's experience. And, yes, he can sometimes go for runs, but you want to encourage him to bowl fast. That's really important."
7.10pm: Interval - Australia 92 for 5
This has been a very uncharacteristic batting performance by Australia so far. They have scored at 1.81 runs an over, which, at present is the second slowest scoring rate they have managed in a Test innings of any significant length in the last 30 years. It must be an unfamiliar sight for the Australian fans - so used to seeing their team dominate the opposition in the first match of the summer - with their team on the back foot as early as this. Australia's fifth wicket fell at 79 in this innings - the second lowest score at which they have been five down in the first innings of a Test series at home in the last 30 years. They were five down for 78 in the Perth Test against Pakistan in 2004-05, which is the lowest.
6.30pm: India take control
Ashwin was meant to be holding act: he has done that, and taken three top-order wickets to keep India ascendant in this Test. To think there was chatter that India could go with an all-pace attack #INDvsAUS
— Sambit Bal (@sambitbal) December 18, 2020
5.55pm: Ashwin's huge blow
Ashwin to Smith, OUT Got him, Ashwin has struck with an absolute beauty! He got Smith like this in Dharamsala in 2017, but that was from around the wicket. I don't know if this was meant to go on straight or if it was just natural variation, but he plays back to a length ball just outside off, and it skids through quick, takes the outside edge of his defensive bat, and straight into Ajinkya Rahane's lap at slip. Almost seemed to leave Smith off the pitch, kind of like the Mohammad Nabi arm ball
That's only the 3rd time in 11 first innings in Tests against India that Smith has made less than 46. He's made six 100s and a 92 in that span #AusvInd
— Daniel Brettig (@danbrettig) December 18, 2020
Here is @cricketaakash on how to get Steven Smith out.. Some very interesting points in there.
— Gaurav Sundararaman (@gaurav_sundar) December 16, 2020
What I feel
a) Bowl a slower yorker/full length early on to him and trap him LBW. Vary Speed rather than length/line
b) Ashwin's drift could trouble himhttps://t.co/senhgLudoY
5.30pm: Labuschagne's charmed life
5.00pm: What about Bumrah's drop?
There has always been - and always will be - debate around how has T20 affected Test cricket. Higher scoring rates - and the risk involved with it - have sped up Tests, but then there are other changes too. Running between the wickets has changed completely; batsmen believe quick singles upset bowlers' rhythm, but we saw India paid a heavy price with that run-out and not before there had been two close calls earlier in the day.
Then again we saw a bewitching knuckle ball by Josh Hazlewood to nearly get the wicket of a set Virat Kohli when the ball wasn't doing much. It is hard to imagine Hazlewood would have learnt that ball without playing T20 cricket.
And today we saw Jasprit Bumrah's fielding effort at the fence. Don't get me wrong, the bigger issue here was that he misjudged where he was, and these kind of errors can happen, but watch the replays again and again as you will see he wasn't trying to catch the ball. He had made up his mind - because he had misjudged his position vis-à-vis the rope - that the best he could do was keep the ball in play before going over the rope and keep a six down to two runs. You didn't see this kind of fielding before T20. That is because in T20, the value of a wicket vis-à-vis runs is not as high as in other formats. So you prioritise saving runs just as much as the catch.
As it turned out, here Bumrah was well inside the fence, and in the end the dropped ball actually bounced inside the field of play. The predicted reaction of elite players will be: yes, I made a judgement error, and I will train and practise more to not repeat it. However, a pause and a bigger question might be worth pondering: wouldn't you be actually better placed if you didn't lose sight of the more significant thing, the wickets, while trying to what some might call cute things like quick singles and runs saved at the boundary?
4.30pm: Interval - Australia 35 for 2
Dropped! Labuschagne gets a life on 12! #AUSvIND live: https://t.co/LGCJ7zSdrY pic.twitter.com/ooHxon8aCE
— cricket.com.au (@cricketcomau) December 18, 2020
These are old numbers - dating to end of 2018 - but I don't want to bother the wizard Shiva Jayaraman for a fresh complicated query to make a point I am sure you will agree with. So I had a feeling Bumrah always bowled better if India had batted first, and made considerable improvement from the first spell to the second even when India were bowling first. His average in first spells at that time was 40.33 and strike rate 80. In second spells he averaged 24.56 and took a wicket every 57.33 balls. And it just kept improving over each subsequent spell. No other Indian bowler exhibited such a pattern.
Even today, as was shown on TV, India bowled just one ball in the first eight overs that would have ended up at the stumps. Four of those overs were bowled by Bumrah. By the time he came back for his second spell, though, Bumrah had worked out the line and length to bowl. He was fuller and straighter, and his second spell already has two lbws, figures reading 3-2-4-2.
3.55pm: Australia's openers given helping hand
Shami showing how it's done, in his first over as he replaces Bumrah. All six deliveries on the stumps, making an out of form Burns play each and every one of them. More likely to take a wicket compared to Bumrah so far #AUSvIND
— Vishal Dikshit (@Vishal1686) December 18, 2020
3.10pm: A first for Wade
Alternatively Wade will be reborn as an opener after the fashion of Langer circa 2001 and open with Warner for 5 years #AusvInd https://t.co/PGihgbtnmJ
— Daniel Brettig (@danbrettig) December 18, 2020
3.00pm: India collapse
2.35pm: The first over again
One of the big differences between the two attacks on India's last tour of Australia was Australia's inability to attack the stumps with the old ball. Apart from managing more movement with the older ball, India also attacked the stumps more, which showed in how they got 25 bowled or lbw dismissals to Australia's nine. As early as day one of this series, you could see Australia had made an adjustment. In just one day, they had four bowled or lbw dismissals. And how is this for a stat? When Hazlewood trapped Vihari lbw, Australia already had more lbw dismissals in one day than they had all series last time around.
2.20pm: Importance of the tail
In the aftermath of the Virat Kohli run-out, it was easy to forget that already R Ashwin and Wriddhiman Saha have already added a crucial 27 runs for the seventh wicket. As Cheteshwar Pujara said yesterday, lower-order runs are going to be crucial in a closely fought series. When Australia played in India last, it was India's lower order, led by Ravindra Jadeja, Saha and Ashwin, that provided the crucial runs. That India could do so almost every game was because India's tail was used to those conditions and also the Australian attack didn't have the depth to keep up that intensity for long enough to bowl India out. Quite often, the lower-order runs go with the home team so this is one win India badly want.
2.10pm: Australia's bowling class
1.35pm: Covid concerns
Victoria's state government has announced a permit system for NSW visitors to the south, while at the same time advising their own residents not to visit Sydney for the time being.
1.30pm: Catch up
"You never know, we can get to 350 also." - Pujara
— ESPNcricinfo (@ESPNcricinfo) December 18, 2020
How many will Ashwin, Saha and the tail take India to on day two? #AUSvIND pic.twitter.com/WMgopkVGee
Andrew McGlashan is a deputy editor at ESPNcricinfo