Oz tour of India, Feb 9 - March 22

[sussexpob]

Ashwin trapped in front... lead 52.

If India can somehow get that lead up by 30-40-50 runs, they have an outsider chance of creating some pressure, but its hard to see the tail sticking around

[sussexpob]

Guess Axar can bat though....

[andy]

On this pitch 100 chase will be tricky its insane!!!

[sussexpob]

Pujara finally falls, the lead 67..... takes a worldie catch from Steve Smith to remove him.

59 runs that are probably in vain, but feels like a mammoth score on this deck

[sussexpob]

Yadav doesnt last long... 0

Axar may as well have a slog now...

[sussexpob]

163/10... target 76

Would take some epic bowling/terrible batting on any pitch not to make that.

[mikesiva]

India 163 all out

Pujara 59

Lyon 8-64

Target 75

[alfie]

Some pretty brainless batting from India today. They aren't defending 75 even on this - but a bit of sensible shot selection might have seen a lead of maybe thirty more and some kind of chance. Pujara let down by a lot of his teammates.

Full credit to Australia though : Lyon bowled really well ; and I think Smith pulled the strings rather well too - plus taking that decisive catch at leg slip to do for Pujara

Short third day in prospect.

[Durhamfootman]

Guess Axar can bat though....

This is one of the things that has surprised me about India's thinking in this match. Axar has scored big runs when he's batted in this series, but in this match India have kept him right down the order and he hasn't had the support to dig in for runs. Left stranded not out in both innings, when another 20 or 30 runs from him in each of those innings might have made Australia's target a little more daunting on this pitch. He could easily have been coming in at 6 or 7 instead of 9

Have Australia got 76 runs in them on a minefield? I'd imagine yes they do. It only takes one batter to score 20 or 30 and they'd be pretty much there

[bigfluffylemon]

Australia's to lose, but this pitch is enough of a lottery that they'll probably lose several wickets on the way - likely to be a tense chase. But it only needs one partnership to get you most of the way there.

Will be good if Australia can win, just to stick it to India for preparing such nonsense.

[bigfluffylemon]

Amazingly this isn't even in the top 20 lowest averaging wickets since the war.
https://stats.espncricinfo.com/ci/engin ... view=match

Although if you exclude the 1950s, abandonments and matches where the average was low because one team was inexperienced with test cricket and going up against a big leaguer and got stomped, it gets into the top 10 hardest to bat on.
https://stats.espncricinfo.com/ci/engin ... view=match

Even worse, we've had two even poorer pitches in the last 3 years - Brisbane 2022 Australia v South Africa, and Ahmedabad India v England 2021

[bigfluffylemon]

Lyon's overtaken Richie Benaud to be Australia's highest wicket taker in India.
https://stats.espncricinfo.com/ci/engin ... pe=bowling
https://stats.espncricinfo.com/ci/engin ... pe=bowling

His record in India is dramatically better than Warne's. And you could make an argument that he's Australia's best ever spinner in India now. A few others have a better average, but it's hard to draw from a sample size of one tour for them. Benaud has a similar number of wickets in multiple tours, and a much better average but a worse strike rate. And Lyon is almost certainly facing better batsmen than Benaud did...

GOAT?

[alfie]

Lyon's overtaken Richie Benaud to be Australia's highest wicket taker in India.
https://stats.espncricinfo.com/ci/engin ... pe=bowling
https://stats.espncricinfo.com/ci/engin ... pe=bowling

His record in India is dramatically better than Warne's. And you could make an argument that he's Australia's best ever spinner in India now. A few others have a better average, but it's hard to draw from a sample size of one tour for them. Benaud has a similar number of wickets in multiple tours, and a much better average but a worse strike rate. And Lyon is almost certainly facing better batsmen than Benaud did...

GOAT?

Benaud was bowling on rather more batsman friendly pitches though. There were some low scores around then but a lot of very big innings.

They are all pretty handy spinners ! The outlier is Warne whose record in India really did not match up to what he did elsewhere - though he also didn't do so well in West Indies. Always seemed a little odd.

[GarlicJam]

2 balls down, 1 wicket down, 1 review down.

[bigfluffylemon]

Head and Marnus get themselves in and start giving it back, it's just a question of how long now.