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India are in the driver's seat after dominating Australia on Day 2 of the Nagpur Test. Skipper Rohit Sharma made up for the below par performances from top-order and middle-order with a terrific 120-run knock. Just when Australians were looking in control, the ninth-wicket partnership between Ravindra Jadeja and Axar Patel pushed the visitors on the back foot with a 144-run lead at the end of day's play.
Starting the day's play at overnight score of 77/1, Ravichandran Ashwin entertained the crowd by hitting Nathan Lyon for a six. But the nightwatchman became debutant spinner Todd Murphy's first victim of the day. Ashwin scored 23 runs from 62 deliveries. Murphy struck again to dismiss Cheteshwar Pujara for a single-digit score. Pujara got out trying to sweep but the top-edge ballooned to shrot fine leg fielder Scott Boland.
There was a major scare when once again Virat Kohli and Rohit were involved in a mix-up but the latter got a reprieve. In the first session, India scored 74 runs and lost two wickets.
The Kangaroos got their tails on the first ball of second session as Kohli got out off a nothing delivery from Murphy. The 22-year-old bowled one off the leg side and Kohli got bat on it. Wicketkeeper Alex Carey fumbled but completed the catch to send Kohli back to the pavilion for 12 runs. Debutant Suryakumar Yadav could not do the counter-attacking job he was assigned and got bowled by Nathan Lyon after scoring just eight runs. India lost half of the side for 168.
After taking a fifer with the ball, once again Jadeja was under the spotlight to help India take a sizeable lead. Meanwhile, Rohit got to his ninth Test ton with a boundary. He took 171 deliveries to reach the milestone. He became only the fourth batter to hit a century as captain in all three formats after Sri Lanka's Tillakaratne Dilshan, South Africa's Faf du Plessis and Pakistan's Babar Azam. After the second session, India had 226/5 on the board.
Once again, Australia got a wicket in the first over of the session. The new ball did the talking as Pat Cummins forced an edge off Rohit's bat which was dropped by second slip fielder. On the next delivery, Cummins bowled one on stumps. The ball kept low and uprooted the off stump. Rohit got out after scoring 120 runs from 212 deliveries including 15 fours and two sixes.
Murphy continued with the new ball. Debutant Srikar Bharat hit a boundary in the previous over of young spinner but got out lbw in the next. The wicketkeeper-batter could score just eight runs from 10 deliveries. With 240/7, Australians looked to wrap up India's innings with the new ball but Patel continued his form with the bat.
Jadeja got to his half-century from 114 deliveries. Patel did not hold back from punishing bad deliveries. Boundaries came often in the third session and he reached his half-century with few overs to go in the day. The last few overs were eventful as Jadeja got dropped twice. At Stumps, Day 2, the eighth-wicket partnership was worth 81 runs. Patel became the fifth no.9 batsman for India to score a half-century against Australia. Jadeja remained unbeaten for 66 whereas Patel added two more runs to his score after reaching fifty.
