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On Friday, December 6, the highly-anticipated pink-ball Test of the five-match Border-Gavaskar Trophy (BGT) Test series kickstarted at the Adelaide Oval in Adelaide. The visiting captain, Rohit Sharma, who returned to the helm after missing the first Test due to the birth of his second child with wife Ritika Sajdeh, won the toss and invited the hosts to field first.
This decision of Sharma proved a little fatal for the visitors as left-armer Mitchell Starc dismissed India youngsters and last-match centurion Yashasvi Jaiswal for a golden duck, his first golden duck in Test cricket and second duck in the ongoing series down under. Although, wicketkeeper-batter KL Rahul and Shubman Gill steadied the inning, but just moments before Tea, three wickets fell in quick succession with the Indian scoreboard reading 82/4 from 23 overs.
KL Rahul survives no-ball wicket; umpire sends back Virat Kohli after KL Rahul walks back
During the opening session, KL Rahul survived a wicket off Scott Boland’s over. Aussie captain Pat Cummins made first bowling change after seven overs and brought Boland into the attack against KL Rahul. While Boland was making his return after 18 months, he struck KL Rahul outside off stump.
Bowling a 133.3 kmph length delivery on the very firat ball, it quickly nibbled outside off stump with a good bounce. KL nicked it off with Alex Carey completing a catch. As the Aussies charged in to celebrate the wicket, on-field umpire called for a no-ball with KL Rahul heading back to the pavilion. Although, seeing KL Rahul walk off the field, Virat Kohli was all set to enter the field of play but was intervened quickly as replays showed KL surviving his wicket and Snicko supplementing no edge.
Watch KL Rahul survive his wicket off a no-ball from Scott Boland:
While KL Rahul was yet to get off the mark at this moment, he also survived earlier on the fifth delivery with Usman Khawaja dropping a low catch. Although, Rahul edged the delivery, Usman Khawaja dived low to his right at first slip, but failed to hold on. At the end KL Rahul departed having scored 37 runs off 64 off Mitchell Starc’s delivery with Nathan McSweeney completing a catch.
