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But all the chuntering in the chat rooms of the cricketing netherworld is about this Six Demon Bag of a pitch served up at Indore. Darryl from South Africa emailed overnight with these sage words…
“The ICC must stop the prepping of both dustbowls and greentops. The only way to minimise the lopsidedness of home-ground preparation and the importance of winning the toss is to abolish the latter by allowing the visiting team to choose whether to bat or bowl. That would certainly stop this devious pitch-preparation nonsense. I am shocked by what India has done with pitches for this series but ... Live by the dustbowl, die by it too.”
After the world was thrilled to its marrow by New Zealand blowing up “Bazball” in their one-run win over England, the love for Test cricket is at an all-time high
For those who came in late… here’s how our own Geoff Lemon saw Day 1
Preamble
Howdy cricket fans and welcome back to Indore for day two of the third Test between India and Australia in the 2023 Border-Gavaskar Trophy. I’m Angus Fontaine and I’ll be your benevolent Blogfather for the next few hours.
We’ve had some crazy days in this series but none crazier than yesterday – a wicket with the very first ball of the day, two in the first over – yet neither given out and neither reviewed. India flayed six boundaries from the next four overs and looked to be flying when the worm turned, then transformed into a cobra. From 27-0, India quickly slumped to 34-2, then 45-5 and finally 88-8. Ultimately, inside 150 minutes of mayhem, the home side were decimated for 109. The visitors then coolly carved out an unbeaten 156-4 – a 47 run lead worth its weight in gold, with six wickets still up their sleeve.
On a dirty, dusty pitch tailor-made for India’s spin kings, it was Nathan Lyon, Matthew Kuhnemann and Todd Murphy who were the day one destroyers. India’s batters collapsed just as abjectly as Australia’s had in Nagpur and Delhi. The difference was, this time the green caps batted smartly and patiently, banishing the sweep stakes that cost them in the last match, to take the upper hand.
Can they keep it? At Nagpur Australia fought their way back to get even, only to implode again. In Delhi, they got themselves in front before one of the most brainless and spineless collapses in history. Here, their top-order of Usman Khawaja (60), Marnus Labuschagne (31) and Steve Smith (26) have shown what it takes to survive and prosper. Can last established batter Peter Handscomb and returned allrounder Cameron Green ram home the advantage today?
Batten down hatches and buckle up britches. We’ll be underway shortly…
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