Courtesy: Cricket Australia
On Friday, November 22, the highly anticipated first Test of the five-match Border-Gavaskar (BGT) series between Australia and India delivered the goods on day one at the Optus Stadium in Perth. After the Indian cricket team were bundled out for just 150 runs on a spicy pitch, their captain Jasprit Bumrah was exceptional in his first spell, to bring the team back into the match before they reduced Australia to 67/7 at the close of play on day one.
After winning the toss, Jasprit Bumrah, the stand-in captain of the Indian cricket team, who is leading the side in absence of Rohit Sharma, decided to bat first despite the pitch expected to assist the fast bowlers. The Indian top order struggled in the first session with the likes of Yashasvi Jaiswal and Devdutt Padikkal didn’t trouble the scorers, while big fish Virat Kohli was gone for just five runs.
KL Rahul looked quite secure in his defence, scoring 26 off 74 with three fours before he was controversially given out on DRS, getting nicked off on the bowling of Josh Hazlewood with Alex Carey taking a simple catch. India were reduced to 73/6 at one stage before a seventh wicket stand of 48 runs between Rishabh Pant (37 off 78) and debutant Nitish Kumar Reddy (41 off 59), played a key role in taking them to 150 after Josh Hazlewood picked up a four-wicket haul.
In response, Jasprit Bumrah wreaked havoc on the Australian batting lineup in his first spell, dismissing debutant Nathan McSweeney before picking up the wickets of Usman Khawaja and Steve Smith in back-to-back deliveries, with the latter getting a golden duck. Debutant Harshit Rana castled Travis Head for 11 runs before Mohammed Siraj got into the act to pick up the wickets of Marnus Labuschagne (2 off 52) and Mitchell Marsh cheaply.
During the closing stages of play on day one, Jasprit Bumrah returned for another spell of bowling, and he quickly sent his opposing counterpart Pat Cummins back into the pavilion. Alex Carey (19* off 28) and Mitchell Starc remained unbeaten at the close of play with Australia still trailing India by 83 runs.
