Pujara and Rahane launch India fightback

As was duly expected but which arrived firmly against the flow of recent events, India’s previously brittle batting has lifted them into a position from where they now see a genuine chance to level the four-Test series against Australia.

An unbeaten 93-run stand between right-handers Cheteshwar Pujara and Ajinkya Rahane, on a pitch that was deemed almost indecipherable to those not batting left-handed, has carried the hosts to a lead of 126 with two days remaining.

Scarcely unassailable for an Australia outfit that’s had their rivals’ measure at every turn in the preceding five days of cricket, but one that is already viewed as challenging given the erratic way the ball has leaped and spun from the heavily cracked surface.

Pujara, who was the target of a pointed outburst from Australia spinner Steve O’Keefe when he claimed the key wicket of India’s main batting threat KL Rahul midway through the day, benefited from a couple of tough but costly fielding lapses.

Keeper Matthew Wade missing a reflex catch behind from the bowling of Nathan Lyon when Pujara was three, and then skipper Steve Smith unable to snatch an even harder chance low to his left at slip in Lyon’s next over when the batter had advanced to four.

He ended the day unbeaten on 79 and built an invaluable two-hour union for the fifth wicket with Rahane (40no), who also might have been dismissed on three.

Although the gloved chance that flew above David Warner’s head at leg slip would scarcely have been rated a missed opportunity even if the fielder was armed with a butterfly net.

The pair’s capacity to build India’s lead when they resume in the morning will probably decide this Test, which Australia entered holding an unexpected 1-0 lead in the four-Test series but they would not fancy chasing many more than 220 if they are to be confident of extending that supremacy.

Where it was Lyon and O’Keefe who have set up Australia’s ascendancy in the previous three innings, it was seamer Josh Hazlewood (3-57) who carried the torch today when the tourists’ attack managed just five maidens from 72 overs bowled.

Hazlewood’s initial strike, with the fourth delivery after lunch, had provided his team a chance to regroup in the wake of their most profligate session of the campaign thus far, and served as a tonic more welcome than a fresh lime soda (salted) on a steamy Karnataka afternoon.

Until the moment the 26-year-old snuck a delivery from around the wicket through the gaping defence of opener Abhinav Mukund and uprooted his off stump, Australia were starting to flounder.

The first session they surrendered all series had seen their first-innings lead terminated at 87 amid a clatter of late-order wickets – the last four falling in unseemly haste for the addition of just seven runs.

And then the bowlers who have been so meticulously reliable across India’s three previous innings repeatedly failed to hit their marks and looked to be straining to snare wickets.

On contravention of the carefully drafted plan for this four-Test battle, which called for relentless landing of deliveries in ‘dangerous’ areas in the hard-won knowledge that pitch conditions were as likely to deliver breakthroughs as the ability to conjure an occasional ‘wicket ball’.

Yet Mitchell Starc, both economical and threatening in India’s first innings when he conceded less than 40 runs from 15 overs bowled, bled at more than five an over in his first spell before lunch.

And first innings history maker Nathan Lyon was unable to rediscover that remarkable grouping of deliveries that had netted him a career-best 8-50 on Saturday and ultimately finished the day wicketless.

But Hazlewood delivered on predictions that his accuracy and propensity to extract just enough even when conditions are offering quite a lot when he grabbed three vital scalps.

None bigger than India captain Virat Kohli who, for the fourth time in as many innings against a team for which he makes no secret of his wish to subjugate, failed to reach 20.

A similarly lean run to that which he endured in the West Indies and then at home last year, and which was eventually snapped by a then career-high 211 against New Zealand at Indore last October.

Kohli was certain he had jammed bat on to ball before it crashed into the knee roll of his right pad, and had signalled for Nigel Llong’s verdict to be reviewed almost before the umpire’s index finger was fully raised.

Kohli even flashed a smile as he waited for the evidence to be examined, and was clearly incensed when third umpire Richard Kettleborough could uncover no conclusive proof that a crime had been committed.

The India skipper steamed back to his team’s dressing room, at one point his arms outstretched in front of him as if incredulous at the injustice and appearing to off his bat – handle first – to incoming batter Ravindra Jadeja.

In India’s three innings of the series to date, the removal of Kohli has opened up a fast-track through the batting order.

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They lost 7-61 after he nicked off first ball at Pune, 7-60 in the wake of his misjudged no-shot in the second innings of that Test, and 7-101 when he shouldered arms with the same disastrous outcome two days ago.

But today revealed a totally different India, a transformation that admittedly began with their disciplined bowling effort that never allowed the Australians to wriggle free, and then batters exhibiting the same sort degree of spine as their rivals had sported in the days previous.

It was no surprise that it was opener Rahul, far and above India’s best batsman of what has been a lean series to date for their vaunted top-order, who set the tone with his third half-century from four attempts.

And that it took an act of brilliance to dislodge him, Smith’s intuitive intercept from an edge that flew off a rare miscued drive seeming to defy physics as well as probability as he levitated from first slip to second and clasped a catch that appeared already past him.

But after Kohli and Jadeja fell in the space of four overs, Pujara and Rahane erected a roadblock where there had previously flowed one-way traffic.

Rarely looking daunted on a pitch that, as Pujara foreshadowed the previous evening, looked to have counter-intuitively become better to bat on and which was certainly proving harder work for Australia’s bowlers than they had encountered on their earlier days of truncated toil.

Given the mental and physical energy the capable portion of Australia’s batting invested to chisel out a 48-run advantage on day two, the capitulation that came an hour into day three left a slightly tamarind taste.

The philosophy underpinning Australia’s success across the first five days of this campaign had been as unbending as it has been uncomplicated.

Stick fast to the individual and team blueprints, aim to bat 150 overs in each first innings, don’t lose wickets in clumps, and even more vitally don’t surrender patience.

The approach that Wade and Starc carried resolutely for 10 overs into day three as they scrapped and scratched and stretched the lead to lead towards 80 with the real prospect of pushing it out to 100, maybe 120.

Each run worth roughly double, such was the skittish nature of this most inhospitable pitch.

Starc, so expansive in Pune where his 61 from around as many balls ran counter to the pace of the first Test, was especially watchful.

And seemingly intent on maximising the second chance he’d been handed after keeper Wriddhiman Saha spilled a sharp catch before Starc had scored on Sunday evening.

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But upon being gifted another reprieve on 25 from 49 balls faced, when his call to review a caught behind verdict was vindicated, Starc appeared to decide his luck was almost spent.

Duly cashing in the last of it with an ambitious leg side mow that reeked of frustration, and precipitated the sort of collapse the Australians had so assiduously avoided up to that point.

They coughed up their last four wickets for seven runs in less than five overs, three of them to the left-arm spin of Jadeja who returned India’s best bowling figures of the series to date – 6-63 from 21.4 overs.

Among them was keeper Wade who had dug in for almost three hours to score 40, but the inability of the tail to offer a wobble if not a fully-fledged wag meant the lead was restricted to 87.

Which looked nowhere near enough as India’s openers played with refreshed intent that was best illustrated by their urgent scampering between wickets to reduce that by 38 in just 10 overs prior to lunch.

Until Hazlewood set about re-drafting the plot of this twisting and turning thriller with his first over after the long break before India’s batting muscle finally found a chance to flex.