A fiery spell by spinner Nathan Lyon left India struggling at the end of their first session of the second Test against Australia of the four-match series at Delhi on Saturday.
At lunch, India’s score read 88/4 in 35 overs, with Ravindra Jadeja (15*) and Virat Kohli (14*) unbeaten at the crease.
India started off the second day at 21/0 in nine overs, with skipper Rohit Sharma (13*) and KL Rahul (4*) unbeaten.
Rohit-KL made a solid start to the second day, stealing singles and hitting an occasional boundary or two. However, they could add only 25 runs to their first-day score before KL was dismissed by spinner Nathan Lyon for 17 off 41 balls. A string of low scores continued for the opener. India was 46/1 at that point.
This brought Cheteshwar Pujara to the crease and fans had high hopes from the man who was playing his 100th Test.
A sweep shot by Rohit in 18.2 overs took India to the 50-run mark.
However, Lyon continued to ask questions to Indian batters with his line and length and troubled them. Lyon played a spoilsport to India’s hopes of recovery after the first wicket, dismissing skipper Rohit Sharma (32), Pujara (0) and a returning Shreyas Iyer (4) in quick succession. This reduced India to 66/4 in 25.2 overs.
Pujara became the eighth batter and second Indian batter to get a duck in his 100th Test match and failed to make the occasion memorable for himself. Other players to have had this unfortunate record to their names are Dilip Vengsarkar, Allan Border, Courtney Walsh, Mark Taylor, Stephen Fleming, Brendon McCullum and Alastair Cook.
Virat and Ravindra Jadeja started to build a small partnership following a flurry of quick wickets. They took India through the remainder of the session without any further damage.
The first session clearly belonged to Aussies. Lyon’s spell of 4/25 was the difference between both sides.
Brief Scores: India: 88/4 (Rohit Sharma 32, KL Rahul 17, Nathan Lyon 4/25) trail Australia: 263 (Usman Khawaja 81, Peter Handscomb 72, Mohammed Shami 4/60). (ANI)
