David Warner falls cheap in return, but Steven Smith seems to have left his troubles behind
Stumps Australia 166 to 2 (Labuschagne 67 *, Pucovski 62, Smith 31 *) vs India
Half a century of Marnus Labuschagne and Will Pucovski, the rookie, gave Australia much of what she had desperately missed in the first two tests, where 200 was the highest total entry. The two denied R Ashwin’s threat, placed a century-old position and set the stage for Steven Smith to return to racing and put Australia in a strong position. With an invincibility of 67, a 13th score of over 50 on his 28th entry, Labuschagne led Australia to a solid 166 to 2 stumps after the first two sessions were heavily truncated because of the weather.
As in Adelaide and Melbourne, the lost footprints played an important role in how the sessions rocked – the two dropped Rishabh Pants certainly pushed India back. Both lives went to Pucovski, on 26 and 32, and he scored 62 before being caught by rookie Navdeep Saini.
Shortly after Smith entered 106 to 2, India brought Ashwin back – the spinner answered for Smith twice in the series in the space of 23 balls. The tension was palpable; Ashwin is desperate to try, and Smith is eager to go out and hit Ashwin on the floor and stamp his authority. Smith was almost dismissed on the 26th, when he fell and was defeated on the flight, but the ball hit his cushions and passed through the stumps. And, four balances later, there was an excited call for a bat-pad capture. Smith looked fine, and Ajinkya Rahane asking for the review after the 15-second deadline probably saved India from a review.
Most of Australia’s weightlifting was done in the second session without a wicket, when the ball was new and Labuschagne and Pucovski were still fresh on the line. An exciting first hour unfolded with India’s rapids hitting precise lines for his two slips and the leg side fields that included a silly half-on for Mohammed Siraj. But the scouts saw the pitchers pass with watchful eyes and patient leaves, without worrying about the scoring rate. Ashwin, presented on the 14th, was the first to create a chance while mixing things up – floating, more flattened, drifting winged orthodox deliveries that even won certain – when he induced a Pucovski outer edge, but Pant dropped and the spell fell Ashwin finished 5-1-7-0.
Three balances later, Pucovski received a glove on a short ball from Mohammed Siraj that got big on him and Pant ran back to the crazy reception, but first he couldn’t help himself while diving, and then he couldn’t tuck his gloves under ball in time while desperately grabbing it again. Pucovski had a third life in 39 too when he tried a third time, but Labuschagne sent him back and he was saved only by an inaccurate move by Jasprit Bumrah after he slipped in the outer field.
By this time, the two batters were watching, the ball was no longer new and the sun had cleared the clouds. After a stage of 18 balls of straight points, Labuschagne jumped on Ashwin when he shot very short or out. When Ashwin got it right, Labuschagne carefully closed the face of his staff with soft hands and deftly avoided the short leg that awaited him and slipped again and again. In the last over before tea, Pucovski received Saini with a fierce cut and a powerful pull for the four consecutive days to bring his half century to the fore, scoring 46 runs in the ten overs before the break, increasing the score.
Pucovski, however, lasted only ten deliveries after tea, when Saini got the better of him, but Australia quickly crossed three digits with his second batch of 50 runs out of just 58 deliveries after the first took 140. Labuschagne attacked and punished Siraj’s full deliveries of fours for crossing 50, while Smith collected three of fours in the space of four deliveries of Bumrah and Saini to run for 13 of 11, which set the tone for his entries that reached 31 by stumps.
The rain previously consumed many overs after allowing only 35 minutes of play in the first session, after Australia opted to hit. The hosts were thrilled with the return of David Warner, who was clearly less than 100% in the race between the shutters. He was doubtful out there too, and one of them led to his resignation when he shone twice in a row and on the second attempt, he managed a thick advantage to drop to 5 from Siraj. It was Warner’s lowest home score since November 2016, also the last time he scored in single digits in a test on Australian soil.
Vishal Dikshit is a senior subeditor of ESPNcricinfo