The first day of the virtual final between India vs Australia Test series in Dharamsala took a sharp turn after the first innings. The debutant Chinaman Kuldeep Yadav made a dream debut as he shattered Australian batting lineup into bits and pieces. He picked up his first Test wicket and immediately had tears rolling down from his eyes and hugged stand-in captain Ajinkya Rahane. Kuldeep ended up taking a total of four wickets for 68 runs before the Aussies were bundled for a total of 300.
After losing Virat Kohli in the last game and then the toss, India was invited to field first. Australia lost its first wicket in the form of Matthew Renshaw. Umesh Yadav dismissed Renshaw for 1 in the second over and gave an early breakthrough. But Steven Smith who came into bat at number 3 already had something different in his mind. In the first session, both Warner and Smith hit 50s and Australia was 131/1 by the lunch. The duo of David Warner and Steven Smith added 134 runs for the second wicket before David Warner was dismissed by Kuldeep Yadav at an individual score of 56.
The duo of David Warner and Steven Smith added 134 runs for the second wicket before David Warner was dismissed by Kuldeep Yadav at an individual score of 56 in the second session. Then came Shaun Marsh and was speculated that he might play a stagnant inning once again like he did in Ranchi but he could survive merely 10 minutes on the crease. Umesh Yadav dismissed Shaun Marsh for 4 off 14 balls and sent him back to the pavilion.
Peter Handscomb came in to bat at number 5 with While Smith needed a partner who could withstand the Indian bowling as he was gradually moving towards his century. But no other batsman could do much and build another partnership with the skipper. Ahead of the tea break, in the 60th over, Ashwin dismissed the centurion of the day, Steve Smith for 111 of 173 balls. This was a huge blow again to the Aussies at the end of the second session. But not for the Indians as they have successfully taken the 5th wicket in this session. The second session ended with Aussies putting 77 runs on the board and losing 5 wickets. The score was 201/6 by the tea break.
The third and the last session made Kuldeep Yadav a star as by then, he had taken 4 wickets and have dismissed David Warner (56), Peter Handscomb (8), Glenn Maxwell (8) and Pat Cummins (21). It was Matthew Wade who tried to do something saviour for the team and scored a much needed half century but could not convert it into a bigger one. Ravindra Jadeja took him down and he was bowled after scoring 57 of 125 balls.
Nathan Lyon was the last Aussie scalp who gave his wicket to Bhuvneshwar Kumar and few minutes prior to the day’s end, the Aussies were all out for a total of 300 runs. Apart from Kuldeep Yadav’s 4 wickets, Umesh Yadav took 2 and rest of bowlers, Bhuvneshwar, Ashwin and Jadeja, got 1-1 wicket each.
The Indian opening pair – KL Rahul and Murali Vijay – went on the field to play the last over of the day but couldn’t score any run in the only over they got to play. The play of Day 1 concluded with Australia getting all out for 300 and India is at 0/0 and are trailing by 300 runs.
