India tour of Australia (Nov 22, 2024 - Jan 03, 2025)

[backfootpunch]

Looks like another ton coming soon for Smith. Maybe news of his demise is premature.

Indeed

His hundred in the previous match he looked out of form but made the runs by sheer force of will

This innings has been vintage steve smith. The best player of this era. He is very quickly taking this game away from India.

A draw seems there best hope bar bumrah skittling Australia in the 2nd innings.

[GarlicJam]

Far more worrying in my opinion is that for a second time this series, a player is hit on the pad while moving down the pitch, and hawkeye makes a clear error on the ball tracking of it.

The Comms didn't pick it up, but look at the Siraj ball to Khawaja right at the start of the innings. When Khawaja is hit on the pad, you can see the ball hits him almost perfectly on the middle of the knee roll, bat is pointing straight down the pitch mms from the ball, Khawaja's head is down and straight looking at the ball, and his front foot is planted just a toes length outside from the large worn patch on the pitch to judge how far down he is....cut to the hawkeye decision, Khawaja has his head looking at slip, bat is angled and miles away from the pad, and his front foot is now completely outside the worn patch on the pitch.....

Hakweye clearly superimposed the position of Khawaja sometime AFTER he was struck (looking at the replay 1-2 seconds after) to judge where he was hit, and not actually his position when he was hit. The ball tracking therefore concludes that he was hit well above the knee roll, probably 1 balls diameter if not more were the naked eye can clearly see he was hit... its not even close to be accurate. This makes sense, because Khawaja is moving forward when he is hit, and takes 2 steps further down the pitch with his momentum after contact, so using this "final position" as a judge of his body position in line with the flight of the ball, they have in essence made it look like he was hit further up on the pad.

Considering the ball scrapes the stumps on hawkeye, its an error that appears to have cost India a wicket. Don't think we can even debate its a mistake, its pretty unambiguous and totally obvious if you check the replay. Khawaja's body position is clearly from the future.

Fully disagree here. I went back and had about 6 reviews of it after reading your post. The position of the ball on impact did not alter once the impact happened - yes, maybe the vision of Khawaja moved on about a tenth of a second, but the impact position of the did not alter - so I fail to see what a difference this has made.
Plus, the ball was (projected to be) missing the stumps by about a full inch. That is a lot.

[GarlicJam]

Reading the reports and outrage about the Kohli thing, I was expecting to see Kohli subject Konstas to the sort of violence you see in a Robert Rodriguez neo-Western film, so I was somewhat disappointed to find out this violent assault was actually something that would require some exaggeration to even be considered "handbags". Just a nothing moment, time to move on.

Yes, a storm in a teacup - as has everything so far this series. So over-reported and dramatised.

Though, it was a stupid and pathetic action by Kohli. Poor choice of action on is behalf, by someone so experienced and exalted. I was disappointed FOR him, and I can easily believe that he regrets it.

[alfie]

That Konstas assault in the morning clearly rattled India

Rattled by the fact they maybe couldn't believe he was getting so lucky. The reports suggest it was a classy, aggressive, wow introduction to test cricket.... for me, it appeared like he spent about 20 balls to start with realising that he couldn't get anywhere near the ball and being beaten, then decided he may as well have a hit, and on another day he could have easily been out 5-6 times in that 60 odd balls.

Oh he quite obviously enjoyed a fair ration of good fortune ! But that makes absolutely no difference to the effect his innings had on the Indian bowlers...it completely knocked them off their game ; and set the scene for everything that followed. Will it work every time ? Of course not. Far too early to say "new Dave Warner" : whether he can turn this remarkable start into regular runs remains to be seen. His (still fairly short) FC record suggests he has more than one string to his bow : suspect he will always be aggressive , though we may not see repeated ramps etc every time. Sixty on debut is a decent start for anyone , 19 or much older.

Considering the alternatives like Harris , Bancroft etc (apart from the out of position McSweeneys or Smiths) have proved underwhelming to say the least , I fancy the selectors will be looking to give the lad a good run to see just how he can progress. Probably won't be dull viewing...

[alfie]

Reading the reports and outrage about the Kohli thing, I was expecting to see Kohli subject Konstas to the sort of violence you see in a Robert Rodriguez neo-Western film, so I was somewhat disappointed to find out this violent assault was actually something that would require some exaggeration to even be considered "handbags". Just a nothing moment, time to move on.

Yes, a storm in a teacup - as has everything so far this series. So over-reported and dramatised.

Though, it was a stupid and pathetic action by Kohli. Poor choice of action on is behalf, by someone so experienced and exalted. I was disappointed FOR him, and I can easily believe that he regrets it.

Agreed. Just a bit silly : but the media love to beef this stuff up into a storm. Maybe in a day or so they'll settle down and get back to the actual cricket.

[mikesiva]

Australia 474 all out

Smith 140
Labuschagne 72
Konstas 60
Khawaja 57
Cummins 49

Bumrah 4-99
Jadeja 3-78

[mikesiva]

There are at least three passengers on this India tour of Australia.

Rohit
Gill
Pant

[andy]

Feel like Rohit is done certainly in tests time for him to move on....bring in gaikwad/paddikal and transition this India side.....Gill's away record is horrendous it's so bad but he's young so there's always time for him...and Pant was always going to be an interesting one...he never actually looks fit these days which isn't a suprise given his horror injury but Jurel was hard done by being dropped and i can see them going back to him eventually

[sussexpob]

Fully disagree here. I went back and had about 6 reviews of it after reading your post. The position of the ball on impact did not alter once the impact happened - yes, maybe the vision of Khawaja moved on about a tenth of a second, but the impact position of the did not alter - so I fail to see what a difference this has made.
Plus, the ball was (projected to be) missing the stumps by about a full inch. That is a lot.

The live footage shows the impact of ball. Indicated on the photo is the line of the knee roll, as you can see he has been hit almost flush in the middle of the roll. His head is looking down, and his bat is coming down towards the pad.



The Hawkeye replay image is now shown below. I don't think I need to point out that the position of Khawaja is wrong on the image, its quite clear; we know the fact the ball is still left on the image on the way to second slip that its 0.5 second or so after the actual impact.



Hawkeye nevertheless plots the impact of the ball on this wrong image. Now we can quite clearly see Khawaja has gone a little more forward in the hawkeye impact. His leg is more vertical, meaning the point of impact is higher than it should be. And as indicated by the line drawn, the worn part of the pitch tells us he has stepped slightly more forward after the shot was played (real time, he takes a couple of short steps as his momentum comes forward). The net effect is, Hawkeye wrongly says he's been hit on the very top of the pad using this wrong image. The 100% unarguable proof of the real time footage shows he was not, and highlights the wrong frame being used for the assessment has quite clearly impacted the decision.

Measure the distance between the middle of the knee roll and the end of the pad, and tell me if that is more than the inch it went above the stumps?

Hawkeye got it wrong.

[meninblue]

Even if India do not manage to avoid follow-on score, I doubt Australia will ask India to follow-on. In case India gets past follow-on score, Australia are still very likely to get a significant lead. Like other matches of this series, this too is one-sided.

[backfootpunch]

You'd imagine indias chance of staying competitive ended with jaiswal and kohlis running disaster

[GarlicJam]

Even if India do not manage to avoid follow-on score, I doubt Australia will ask India to follow-on. In case India gets past follow-on score, Australia are still very likely to get a significant lead. Like other matches of this series, this too is one-sided.

I agree. Time is still good, and Bumrah bowled close on 30 overs first innings. If Aus can get 20 or more more overs out of him today/tomorrow, the strain of carrying the bowling attack for most of the series may start to take its toll.

An amazing bowler and a very real threat at all times, but surely he has his limits.

[bigfluffylemon]

Reading the reports and outrage about the Kohli thing, I was expecting to see Kohli subject Konstas to the sort of violence you see in a Robert Rodriguez neo-Western film, so I was somewhat disappointed to find out this violent assault was actually something that would require some exaggeration to even be considered "handbags". Just a nothing moment, time to move on.

Yes, a storm in a teacup - as has everything so far this series. So over-reported and dramatised.

Though, it was a stupid and pathetic action by Kohli. Poor choice of action on is behalf, by someone so experienced and exalted. I was disappointed FOR him, and I can easily believe that he regrets it.

Things like this do get overblown, but it was pretty poor by Kohli - someone of his stature deliberately doing that to a debutant. He accepted his sanction, and fair enough.

[Arthur Crabtree]

Key wicket of Pant by Boland. But tense period of the game with the follow on just about in India's reach.

[bigfluffylemon]

Even if India do not manage to avoid follow-on score, I doubt Australia will ask India to follow-on. In case India gets past follow-on score, Australia are still very likely to get a significant lead. Like other matches of this series, this too is one-sided.

I agree. Time is still good, and Bumrah bowled close on 30 overs first innings. If Aus can get 20 or more more overs out of him today/tomorrow, the strain of carrying the bowling attack for most of the series may start to take its toll.

An amazing bowler and a very real threat at all times, but surely he has his limits.

Yeah, agreed. India just need to take the innings as deep as possible. But even if they pass the follow on target, it's not looking good.