The inevitable has happened. India, coming on the back off a thunderous Test series loss at home, have been humbled once again. While Perth showed a vulnerable side of Pat Cummins‘ Australia, they came out all guns blazing across all seven sessions played. Australia’s dominance in pink-ball Tests continued as they mauled the Indian team with a comfortable 10-wicket win. India’s batting, particularly by Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli, was quite ordinary to be honest, allowing the hosts to make inroads time after time.
Anti-climax for Rishabh Pant, Nitish Reddy
Team India started Day 5 with a far-fetched hope. Rishabh Pant and Nitish Kumar Reddy were at the crease, and the fans wanted them to pull off an unlikely hiest. But the result was quite an anticlimax. Mitchell Starc got rid of Pant in the opening over of Day 3. While his pyrotechniques led to huge talking on Day 2, Pant had no answers to Starc’s delivery that was easily caught by Steven Smith at the slips.
While Pant was quick to run back to the pavilion, it was quite heartening to see Nitish Reddy. The lad has been India’s saviour for almost all the innings, and now the stage was set for him to hit a few more blows. He did hit some though, equalling his career-best score of 42. When Reddy hooked Pat Cummins for a six, excitement sparked only for the Indian fans to see him get holed out by Nathan McSweeney at fine third-man. It was quite a field-setting by Cummins, who claimed a match-winning five-wicket haul in the second innings.
The short-ball plan certainly worked for Australia. Harshit Rana was rattled for a duck by Cummins, while Mohammed Siraj and Jasprit Bumrah also bore some brunt. Eventually India failed to manage to get to their first-innings total, getting all out for 175, setting a mere target of 19 runs. It was indeed a formality for Australia to win the match.
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Rohit-Kohli lead India’s poor 355/20
Yes, it was a pink ball game. Yes, the Adelaide track had something for the pacers, and Australia extracted the best out of it. But it is also the fact that the Indian batting was absolutely poor. Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli are both enduring one of their toughest years. In his last 12 innings, the Hitman has registered scores of 6, 5, 23, 8, 2, 52, 0, 8, 18, 11, 3, 6, averaging just 11.83. Kohli, meanwhile, has averaged just over 20 across formats this year—the worst-ever in his illustrious career.
Kohli was troubled once again quite easily by the Aussie pacers. He was unsure about his off-stump and made just 18 runs. Rohit, meanwhile, was even worse. His move to bat in the middle order completely backfired. He seemed quite uncomfortable at the crease, lacking confidence, and was a walking wicket on that track. It must be noted that there are only two Indian batters among the top six who average less than 30 in Tests this year. Incredibly, those two are Rohit and Kohli, averaging 27.13 and 26.64, respectively.
India managed to bat just 81 overs in the entire game. This was awful considering that it took 87.3 overs for Australia to get bundled out in their first innings. Travis Head and Marnus Labuschagne showed two contrasting ways to make runs on this wicket. Meanwhile, the Head vs Siraj banter was one of the highlights.
Potential Scenario after a IND vs AUS 2nd Test loss
A loss would trigger these key changes:
- Australia climb to the top of the table with a 60.71% win percentage
- South Africa remain in second place at 59.26%
- India drop to third place with 57.29%
Qualification Challenges
To reach the WTC Final, India would now face a steep challenge:
- Must win all remaining 3 matches; if not, at least 2
- Ideally, it needs to win the series 4-0 or 5-0; that cannot be the case now
- A 4-1 or 3-0 series result would not guarantee qualification
- Hope South Africa win all their remaining games
India’s remaining matches
- India vs Australia – December 14-18, Brisbane
- India vs Australia – December 26-30, Melbourne
- India vs Australia – January 03 – 07, Sydney
Australia remaining matches
- India vs Australia – December 14-18, Brisbane
- India vs Australia – December 26-30, Melbourne
- India vs Australia – January 03 – 07, Sydney
South Africa remaining matches
- South Africa vs Sri Lanka – December 05-09, Gqeberha
- South Africa vs Pakistan – December 26-30, Centurion
- South Africa vs Pakistan – January 03-07, Cape Town
New Zealand’s remaining matches
- New Zealand vs England – December 6-10, Wellington
- New Zealand vs England – December 14-18, Hamilton
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