Australia make merry, on stop - play day | 1st Test | Adelaide
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Wednesday, 10 December 2014 By Unknown
A day which had the potential to be an intriguing contest between bat and ball turned out to be a day dominated by rain, poor bowling and brilliant batsmanship as the Indians chased leather for most part of the day.
Play resumed ten minutes late due to overnight rain and all of a sudden India had a bit more to play with. The cloud cover and the new ball can be a good combination to test the batsmen early on but India spilled the opportunity by bowling short and from there on it only went downhill as Michael Clarke and Steven Smith continued their onslaught on the visitors.
Clarke battling with a back injury made full use of the bowling lapses and cruised to a hundred in no time with shots played all around the wicket. His love for the Indian attack has not changed ever since he made his debut. Bad back or hamstring problem was too little a thing for the Aussie captain as rain played spoilsport for most part of the day.
Steven Smith on the other hand continued to dominate the Indian attack showing his full range of shots and the visitors needed more fielders outside the boundary ropes than inside the playing area to get the ball back in the field of play. Smith was literally toying with the Indian attack with almost a boundary every over.
The less we talk about the Indian attack, the better it is, as a day where the embryonic job should have been completed by dismissing the tail as early as possible, went by putting fielders in the boundary line.
It is a no brainer that a guy who has a chronic back problem should be made to come forward on the front foot but instead of pitching the ball up, India kept on bowling short to Clarke and let him off the hook very early on in the day.
Short bowling has nothing to do with talent but everything to do with the thinking. Australia piled on the runs as and when there was any chance of play. To add to the misery, India did not take their chances either as Wridhhiman Saha missed an easy stumping and an odd misfielding here and there never really build any kind of pressure on the batsmen.
Virat Kohli kept pushing the field back which allowed the batsmen to go off-strike at will and when the field is back even the good balls go for runs.
India will have their work cut-out as they come out to bat on Thursday and the good news for the visiting team is that there are no demons in the pitch and a good first innings score here would be ideal as then there will be only one team that can lose the match and it is not India. But for that to happen India need a very big effort with the bat on the coming days of the Test match.
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