Usman Khawaja was unable to make it through a tough 15 minutes and was dismissed by Jasprit Bumrah before stumps arrived on day one’s play of the fifth Border-Gavaskar Trophy Test at the Sydney Cricket Ground on Friday. On an engaging day of Test cricket, seamer Scott Boland shone with his 4-31 as Australia bowled out India for a paltry 185. Apart from him, Mitchell Starc took 3-49 while skipper Pat Cummins chipped in with two scalps as Australia’s fast bowlers took nine wickets in an accurate and deadly bowling performance.
For India, the decision to bat first on a grassy and challenging pitch backfired, as they suffered another first-innings failure to be dismissed for a score of below 200 for the fifth time in the ongoing series. Wicketkeeper-batter Rishabh Pant showed remarkable restraint to top-score with 40, including taking multiple blows on his body. After being bowled out, India got three overs to bowl at Australia, and the hosts’ ended day one at 9/1 in three overs and trail the visitors’ by 176 runs.
Young Sam Konstas began Australia’s innings in style by dancing down the pitch to hit the first ball from towards mid-wicket boundary for four. But on the final ball of the day, Bumrah struck as he found the outside edge of Usman Khawaja’s bat and the catch was taken by second slip to dismiss the batter for two. Interestingly, a pumped-up Bumrah gave a send-off instead to Konstas, with the Indian fielders joining in, as the visitors’ had some cheers at th.
