Australia take first Test after India's historic collapse

On any other day, the sight of opener Joe Burns sealing an Australia Test win with a hook shot parried across the boundary rope for six, thereby securing his first half-century of a hitherto wretched summer, would have been newsworthy of front and back pages.

But against the backdrop of India's stunning batting demise at the hands of some masterful seam and swing bowling, which saw Virat Kohli's acclaimed outfit humbled for the nation's lowest Test total in more than 60 years of cricket, it was reduced to little more than a curious footnote.

Burns finished 51 not out as Australia chased down a paltry second innings target of 90 for the loss of two wickets after India were bowled out for 36 – the equal-fifth lowest completed team score in 143 years of Test cricket – in just 21.2 overs.

The winning runs came when Burns top-edged a pull shot off Umesh Yadav to which Jasprit Bumrah got an outstretched hand before it bounced over the boundary, perhaps a thumbnail sketch of the teams' disparate fortunes in an extraordinary match that ended two-and-a-half days early.

And with Australia now holding a 1-0 lead in the four-match Vodafone Series.

But it was the bowling efforts of Josh Hazlewood and Pat Cummins that will be the talk of the 15,026 socially distanced fans in attendance today, and many millions more watching with incredulity worldwide that will echo down the decades.

Both quicks reached milestones in the course of obliterating Kohli's proud team.

Cummins claimed his 150th Test wicket in his 31st match with only legendary spinner Clarrie Grimmett – whose name adorns the northern entrance at Adelaide Oval – achieving that milestone in fewer appearances for Australia.

Hazlewood celebrated his 200th Test wicket in the midst of the most remarkable spell of his career that ended with figures of 5-8 from five lethal overs, three of which were maidens.

It represented the most miserly five-for by an Australia bowler since Ernie Toshack snared 5-2 at the Gabba on India's inaugural Test visit here in 1947-48, and bettered local hero Tim May's previous benchmark at Adelaide Oval of 5-9 against the West Indies in 1992-93.

Any suspicions about the nature of the Adelaide pitch for the pink-ball Test – the first and potentially last time India have tackled the day-night format at its Australian home – were thoroughly dispelled with the ease in which Australia's top-order chased down the nominal target.

India's brief bowling effort was hobbled by the absence of their most experienced quick Mohammed Shami who did not take the field after being struck while batting earlier today, and his fitness is one of numerous headaches confronting India after their darkest day of Test cricket.

The list of India's batting contributions – 9 4 2 0 4 0 8 4 0 4 1 – read like the dialling digits for a Mumbai mobile.

The only other time a team has failed to produce a double-figure score in a near-completed innings was when Australia saved the 1952 Ashes game against England with a top-score of eight, although their score of 8-35 meant opportunity existed for a tailender to top that tally had stumps not been drawn.

The scale of India's capitulation was only enhanced by the fact it came without warning, or apparent reason on a pitch that both teams believed had been improving as the game went on.

Certainly, Adelaide was sunny and serene when play began, a cooling sou-westerly filling the flags atop the scoreboard that's witnessed so much cricket folklore since it was built in 1911.

But nothing like the escalating drama that unfolded across 90 minutes of mayhem in the first session.

Not Bodyline, nor the day five Ashes miracle of 2006 can credibly rival the sight of one of world cricket's most vaunted batting line-ups being made to resemble more closely the Indooroopilly under-10s than the might of India.

To shave six runs off their nation's previous lowest Test total sounds a near-run record, but the side bowled out for 42 in damp and humid weather at Lord's 46 years ago bore no resemblance to the worldly, well-resourced outfit that Kohli has led to global dominance.

But while cloudless and clear Adelaide was a hemisphere removed from London's low skies, there were similarities in the scoreboards of the respective failures.

At Lord's in 1974, India were undone by the seam movement of Chris Old (5-21) and the swing of Geoff Arnold (4-19) with last man Bhagwat Chandrasekhar absent injured to a finger fracture he sustained while bowling.

Today's destroyers were Cummins (4-21) who jagged the ball both ways off the seam, and Hazlewood (5-8) who was able to generate marginal movement through the air.

And India's innings finished nine-down when fast bowler Shami retired hurt after copping a blow flush on the right forearm while trying to evade a Cummins bouncer.

 

Shami's availability for the remainder of the Test series will be known from scans taken on Saturday afternoon, but India's more immediate challenge is to rebuild a batting order that was reduced to rubble on a pitch that – as both teams expected – had quickened appreciably by day three.

It was that additional pace coupled with the cover of grass that caught the seam and enabled the ball to move sufficiently small degrees to repeatedly find the edges of India's bats.

The fact that six of the nine wickets fell to catches behind the wicket spoke to the difficulties batting posed; the reality that five of those were gloved by 'keeper Tim Paine confirmed with similar clarity that rarely was full-face contact made against Australia's rampant quicks.

Of the two wickets to catches in front of the wicket, the first was Bumrah who stared down five deliveries at the start of the day before bunting the sixth tamely back to Cummins to start the carnage.

At the time, it was thought Bumrah had served his role as night watchman by ensuring India didn't lose a second wicket on Friday evening.

But by innings end he could lay claim to premier batter status having negotiated more balls (17 in total) than opener Prithvi Shaw (4), skipper Kohli (8) and middle-order mainstays Cheteshwar Pujara (8) and Ajinkya Rahane (4).

It was Pujara's dismissal for a duck – just his third such failure in Tests against Australia – to a catch behind off Cummins that provided the first hint something extraordinary was unfolding.

The cheap removal of Shaw and Bumrah was scarcely surprising given the lack of batting acumen they have displayed in this series and across a career respectively, but for Pujara's broad bat to fail him left India under severe pressure at 3-15 barely five overs into the day.

That scoreline became 4-15 the moment Hazlewood replaced Mitchell Starc from the River Torrens end and he accounted for opener Mayank Agarwal in near identical fashion to Pujara with the first ball he sent down for the innings.

His sixth took care of Rahane, whose sacrifice of Kohli to a needless run out in India's first innings became the definitive act given his team were well placed at 3-188 on day one but lost a scarcely credible 17 wickets for 92 runs when batting from then on.

With India on the ropes at 5-15, Australia might have slipped into full attack mode to target Kohli who stood as the final formidable obstacle to a complete steamroll.

But rather than load-up on slips and other close catchers, Paine stuck to the plan of tempting the India skipper's occasional vulnerability outside off stump and executed it with a flourish.

In addition to just two slips, Australia employed fielders at gully and forward point in the expectation Kohli might try his favoured square drive to establish some momentum, as well as a shortish mid-wicket for the flick off his pads when bowlers stray too straight.

The ploy cost a boundary – India's sole scoring shot during a six-over period in which six wickets fell – as Kohli guided a short ball from Cummins that bounced just in front of Cameron Green at gully as he sprawled to his right.

Next ball was fuller, Kohli went at it harder, and Green moved his 199cm frame deftly to the left as the chance slapped into his wrists, rolled up his forearm to meet his chest before lodging somehow in his right claw.

The debutant was mobbed by ecstatic teammates as Kohli left the crease for the final time in this series, only to halt several times on his way to the boundary as video umpire Rod Tucker scrolled through multiple angles and close-ups to finally ascertain ball had not come into contact with ground.

India's best hope of avoiding the ignominy of Test cricket's lowest-ever completed innings of 26 – a record held by New Zealand against England when they were still relatively new to the international scene in 1953-54 – was their last specialist batter Hanuman Vihari and keeper Wriddhiman Saha.

But when Saha defied trend and was caught in front of the wicket, flicking a waist-high catch to Marnus Labuschagne at mid-wicket, and Ravi Ashwin went for a golden duck immediately after, that low watermark still hadn't been passed.

Vihari saved India an eternity of embarrassment when he punched Cummins through the covers for the innings' third boundary that carried the total to 8-30, before he became the fourth victim of the Paine-Hazlewood combo with the score on 31.

A single to Shami and a top-edge slash over the slips by his last-wicket partner Umesh ensured India drew level with Australia's lowest-ever Test tally (posted at Edgbaston in the 1902 Ashes series).

But that's as close as they came to a consolation prize as Shami was felled and then proved unable to continue despite several attempts to grasp the bat with his injured arm before conceding medical attention was the better part of valour.

The bruise that was already developing beneath the bandage on the seamer's bowling arm was replicated on India's psyche a week before their next Test engagement – minus their best batter – at the MCG on Boxing Day.

Vodafone Test Series v India 2020-21

Australia Test squad: Tim Paine (c), Joe Burns, Pat Cummins, Cameron Green, Marcus Harris, Josh Hazlewood, Travis Head, Moises Henriques, Marnus Labuschagne, Nathan Lyon, Michael Neser, James Pattinson, Will Pucovski, Steve Smith, Mitchell Starc, Mitchell Swepson, Matthew Wade, David Warner

India Test squad: Virat Kohli (c) (first Test only), Ajinkya Rahane (vice-captain), Rohit Sharma, Mayank Agarwal, Prithvi Shaw, KL Rahul, Cheteshwar Pujara, Hanuma Vihari, Shubman Gill, Wriddhiman Saha (wk), Rishabh Pant (wk), Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Shami, Umesh Yadav, Navdeep Saini, Kuldeep Yadav, Ravindra Jadeja, Ravichandran Ashwin, Mohammed Siraj

First Test: Australia won by eight wickets (D/N)

Second Test: December 26-30, MCG, 10.30am AEDT

Third Test: January 7-11, SCG, 10.30am AEDT

Fourth Test: January 15-19, Gabba, 11am AEDT