India reduced to 54/5 at stumps, lead Aussies by 346 runs

Melbourne : India were reduced to 54/5 against Australia at stumps of day three on Friday, still maintaining a huge 346-run lead over the hosts in the third Test of the four-match series at the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG).

At the end of the day’s play, Mayank Agarwal and Rishabh Pant were batting at the crease at their respective scores of 28 and six.

India were off to a decent start in their second innings, with openers Mayank Agarwal and Hanuma Vihari batting positively. Everything was looking fine till 28-0 when Pat Cummins struck to remove Vihari for 13 runs.

Subsequently, Cheteshwar Pujara and skipper Virat Kohli, who made significant contributions of 106 and 82 respectively, failed to replicate their good performances and wer both dismissed for a duck off Cummins’ deliveries. The Australian bowler then caught Ajinkya Rahane (one) to claim his fourth wicket of the innings.

Just few overs later, Josh Hazlewood removed Rohit Sharma for five. Sharma, who was unbeaten on 63 in the first innings, was caught by extra bounce as he got a top-edge straight to Mitchell Marsh who made no mistake to take the catch at slip.

Earlier, Jasprit Bumrah tore apart Australia’s batting line up as he scalped a brilliant six-wicket haul to help India bundle out Australia for 151 runs in their first innings, handing the visitors a lead of 292 runs.

The figures of six for 33 also saw Bumrah become the first Asian bowler to claim a six-wicket haul in the longest format of the game in Australia, England and South Africa. He also broke the 39-year-old Indian record of Duleep Doshi to take the top spot in the list of most wickets taken by an Indian bowler in his debut calendar year.

Bumrah has now bagged a total of 45 wickets in his debut calender year of 2018 while Doshi had taken 40 wickets in his debut year in Tests in 1979.

Besides Bumrah, Ravindra Jadeja took two wickets while Ishant Sharma and Mohammed Shami also chipped in with one each.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by The Kashmir Monitor staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)