Indian batters surrendered to Mitchell Marsh's sizzling six-fer as Australia bowled them out for paltry 180 runs on Day 1 of the second Test in Adelaide on December 6, Friday. Mitchell Starc ran through the Indian batting line-up with a phenomenal spell of 6/48. Not even a single Indian batter could cross the 50-run mark as Nitish Kumar Reddy scored the most, 42 runs, for them.
India can get back in the game: Ryan Ten Doeschate
Meanwhile, India's assistant coach Ryan Ten Doeschate is not worried about India's position in the match as he his still confident of team's comeback in the match.
“I know that the scores look like there is a big gap between the two teams but we still feel we are in the game and with a few tweaks tomorrow (Saturday, December 7, 2024), we can get back in the game,” India’s assistant coach Ryan Ten Doeschate said in the press conference after Day 1 stumps.
Doeschate noted that the pace of the game tends to accelerate with the pink ball and this is what exactly happened with India.
“It is the nature of the pink ball. Things happen in clumps, we lost wickets in clumps, which we wanted to avoid. I also thought that Mitchell’s (Starc) stock ball was very good and there are lessons to be learnt from that first innings. We will look at how we can play better in the second innings,” he added.
India's assistant coach compared the current situation with Perth Test, where India were gunned down to a lowly 150 runs and everyone knows what happened next. India went on to win the first Test by a big margin of 295 runs to take a 1-0 lead in the five-match Border-Gavaskar Trophy series against Australia.
“At Perth we got bowled out for 150 and still we got back into that game. This is a proud team and the players want to come here and do well. We may be slightly behind in the game now but there won’t be any surrendering,” he further stated.
While replying to India's 180, Australia started their innings cautiously and finished the Day 1's play at a dominant 86/1. Meanwhile, Doeschate acknowledged that the Indian seamers might have been more effective with a fuller length delivery. He also praised Australia's batting performance.
“They left very well. We feel that the kind of swing and seam is a little bit inconsistent which makes it tough for both parties,” he concluded.
Talking about India's batting, KL Rahul (37) got off to a promising start after Yashasvi Jaiswal's (0) early dismissal. However, he couldn't convert his start into a substantial score. Following Rahul and Virat Kohli's (7) departures, Shubman Gill (31) took charge, but his innings was cut short by Scott Boland. Captain Rohit Sharma (3), batting at number six, failed to contribute significantly. Rishabh Pant provided a brief cameo with a quickfire 21. Ultimately, it was Nitish Kumar Reddy (42) and R Ashwin (22) who steered India past the 150-run mark. By the end of Day 1's play, Australia were strongly place at 86/1. After losing Usman Khawaja's wicket early, Nathan McSweeney (38) and Marnus Labuschange (20) steadied Australia boat.