Rahane's captain's knock hands India crucial lead

Shouldering the weight of captaincy and the guilt of culpability, Ajinkya Rahane's legendary calm carried him through a storm of scrutiny from home and world-class bowling from 22 yards to complete the most symbolic century of his seven-year Test career.

Slipping into the seemingly unfillable shoes of captain Virat Kohli after his return to India for paternity leave, barely a week after his run out of the skipper sparked his team's catastrophic collapse in Adelaide, Rahane carried his team to a position of strength in the second Vodafone Test today.

The gentle, affable 32-year-old's unbeaten 104 carried India to 5-277 and a first innings lead of 82 at the close of the second day which had begun with an Australia bowling effort that loomed more threateningly than the brooding Melbourne skies.

It was not only Rahane's hundred off 195 balls – the 12th of his career and the first by any batter in this ball-dominated series to date – that stands as the difference between India's effort and Australia's day one total of 195.

The unbroken 104-run sixth-wicket partnership he fashioned with allrounder Ravindra Jadeja is also the most productive union of any two batters for any wicket in a series that Australia leads 1-0, and might yet prove the pivotal act of an absorbing drama.

The pair put on 45 runs from 11-and-a-half overs against the second new ball this evening to propel India to favouritism.

Only once in almost 90 years have Australia won a Test at the MCG after facing a first innings deficit greater than the current differential – in Jeff Thomson's debut match against Pakistan in 1972 when they were behind by 133 but scored a 92-run win.

The biggest first-innings deficit they've overcome to win is 160 against South Africa on their second tour to Australia in 1931-32.

Rahane has already ensured history is on India's side, becoming just the second batter from cricket's most influential Test nation to score two centuries at the game's historic birthplace.

It's an honour he shares with not Kohli nor Sachin Tendulkar nor Sunil Gavaskar - who was watching today's innings from his commentary eyrie - but Vinoo Mankad, whose name lives on in the game for non-related reasons.

But the acting captain was the beneficiary of some good fortune handed to him by his opponents.

After Pat Cummins had put Australia on the path to dominance with a stirring morning spell of eight overs that cost just 12 runs and brought the priceless wickets of Cheteshwar Pujara – to a stunning diving catch by Tim Paine – and debutant Shubman Gill, India enjoyed a series of near misses and fumbled chances.

The most costly thus far are the three chances afforded Rahane during a final session played under glaring floodlights on a sultry, steamy Melbourne day.

The right-hander was missed on 57 when he edged a ball from Mitchell Starc – who had earlier become the ninth Australia bowler to reach 250 Test wickets – between keeper and second slip, where no first slip fielder was deployed.

On 73, he sliced Starc's third delivery with the second new ball at high velocity and head height to Steve Smith, who was unable to hang on to the stinging chance at second slip.

Then, in the day's final act before rain brought an end 15 minutes before the rescheduled stumps time, he parried a short ball from the luckless Starc to point where Travis Head made good ground to claim the catch diving forward only for the ball to spill free as his arms hit the turf.

Those misses, coupled with Paine's difficult diving effort early in the day, presented a distinct contrast the respective teams enjoyed in the preceding Test.

In bowling India out for their lowest Test score in Adelaide a week earlier, Australia were quick to point out the freakish outcome was the culmination of two discrete variables – the batters nicked everything rather than playing and missing, and the fielders snared every chance on offer.

Across the first 21.2 overs of India's first innings at the MCG, Australia managed a solitary wicket but saw their rivals spar unsuccessfully at seven deliveries, and mishit the same number that fell short or wide of catchers.

There was also a failed review triggered by the first ball of the second day, when Cheteshwar Pujara pushed forward to Cummins and Australia skipper Paine was convinced by his colleagues fielding in front of the wicket to refer the not-out decision to the third umpire.

While that process was set in motion, Pujara walked down the pitch to his batting partner and reassured Gill the noise in question was his bat lightly brushing his front pad, which the TV technology ultimately confirmed.

Then there was the two dropped catches that meant Gill completed his maiden Test innings with an average of almost 50 instead of something in single figures.

The right-hander was dropped on four by Marnus Labuschagne at third slip in Cummins' second over on Saturday evening, and received another reprieve on 32 when Paine's instinctive dive saw the inside-edged chance hit the palm of his left glove but escape before the fingers closed around it.

Australia's growing frustration was compounded next ball when the debutant received a full delivery that he whipped with iron wrists through mid-on, in haunting resemblance to absent skipper Virat Kohli with whom he has already been regularly, if prematurely, compared.

The 21-year-old, who was captain and named player of the tournament when India triumphed over Australia in the final of the 2018 Under-19 World Cup in New Zealand, appeared set to become the first batter in this ball-dominated match to post a half-century.

He had contributed 39 from just 48 balls faced in his 50 partnership with Pujara for the second wicket, with 28 of his runs coming from boundaries.

But his free scoring from the previous evening had been slowly strangled by Cummins in the midst of his mesmeric morning spell and after soaking up 16 balls to advance from 40 to 45, the rookie threw his hands at a rare delivery offering a measure of width and nicked off.

When Pujara fell to Paine's acrobatic catch for 17, it became incrementally evident that if India was to build a meaningful first innings advantage it would require a special knock from their stand-in skipper.

Rahane assumed Pujara's role as the unflinching, unflappable rock around which the listing innings might be righted.

He absorbed 14 balls from Cummins and Cameron Green without finding a run before he managed his first, a tickle off his hip for a single off Starc.

It took as many deliveries again for Rahane to notch his first boundary, softly dropping his bat onto a ball that Starc angled across him to ensure it fell safely to ground before scooting between gully and the slips to the third-man fence.

And so steadfast was the skipper's progress, he went to lunch with 10 runs from more than an hour at the crease while Hanuma Vihari, who replaced Pujara at the crease, had pushed past to score 13.

Vihari's need to up the tempo even further cost him his wicket in the first hour after the break.

Having delicately dabbed Nathan Lyon to the third-man boundary, Vihari launched an ambitious sweep shot against the next ball but in moving across his stumps, he misread the bounce Australia's spinner extracted from the pitch and the ball ballooned from his glove and over the keeper's head to slip.

Despite the influence wrought by India's off-spinner Ravi Ashwin on the first morning, Lyon had not been introduced into the Australia attack on the second day until 10 minutes before lunch.

However, it took only a handful of overs for him to sound a warning to India's batters when he got a ball to spin viciously from outside Rahane's off stump and past his hip as well as rival captain Paine's gloves to record four byes in the scorebook.

The speed at which Rahane swivelled to track that delivery's trajectory might have contributed to the lower back pain for which he sought on-field treatment shortly after.

But it was his head that was surely left spinning when, having grafted runs at the rate of one every three deliveries faced, irrepressible keeper Rishabh Pant strolled to the wicket and promptly started striking at a run-a-ball.

Pant showed scant regard for Cummins' earlier parsimony, heaving the world's top-ranked Test bowler to the mid-wicket boundary and then flashing another four from an airy drive that squirted through gully in the same over.

Cummins eyed his diminutive rival with bemusement, a look that grew stonier when the left-hander aimed another drive that flew low to Green at gully who – unlike the crucial catch he claimed off Kohli in Adelaide – was unable to conjure a dismissal after the ball struck him near the left wrist.

That missed chance cost Australia just the three runs Pant added to his total before yet another waft outside off brought a thin edge, and a dual milestone for both Starc (250 Test wickets) and Paine (150 Test dismissals).

Any hopes Australia might have held of running through the India tail were stymied initially by rain, which caused a 35-minute delay that included the tea break, and then by Rahane's partnership with Ravindra Jadeja.

Jadeja might boast only one Test century to date – an even, unbeaten 100 against West Indies at Rajkot two years ago – but his crisp ball striking is well known to Australia, who saw him belt 81 from 114 balls in the rain-affected Sydney Test of 2018.

And in a series where no team has threatened a total of 300 across five days of Test batting, the addition of runs from the bottom half of India's order might yet prove decisive.

Australia XI: Joe Burns, Matthew Wade, Marnus Labuschagne, Steve Smith, Cameron Green, Travis Head, Tim Paine (c & wk), Pat Cummins, Mitch Starc, Nathan Lyon, Josh Hazlewood

India XI: Shubman Gill, Mayank Agarwal, Cheteshwar Pujara, Ajinkya Rahane (c), Hanuma Vihari, Rishabh Pant (wk), Ravindra Jadeja, Ravichandran Ashwin, Umesh Yadav, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Siraj

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

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