Imagine you’re doing the Keanu Reeves bit in Speed. You’re on a bus that can’t go slower than 50 miles an hour or it’ll explode. It’s high-octane stuff, even if the bus runs on diesel. You have to avoid collisions, make sick jumps, kindle a romance with Sandra Bullock. But then imagine there is a change in the scenario. Dennis Hopper offers a different idea. Now the bus has a maximum speed. And that speed is 10 miles per hour. Coldness.
It was this kind of change that happened in the first Test between Australia and India on its second day. On the first day, Australia had taken all 10 Indian wickets for 150, then lost seven by stumping for 67. But after the opening exchanges of the second morning, the match turned from rapid chaos to a cautious, thoughtful match and conventional. The slowdown was only beneficial for one team, however. We’re stretching the metaphor beyond the breaking point, but even though this bus was only going 10 mph, it was moving inexorably away from Australia.
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It was the Australians who put the brakes on first, however, unexpectedly through Mitchell Starc and Josh Hazlewood with the bat. The first day’s detonation was triggered by Jasprit Bumrah, and it took him one bullet the next morning to trigger a second. Alex Carey looked the best of all on the first night and started the second morning with some busy singles from Nitish Rana. But Bumrah’s first ball saw him fencing where he should have sat, that delicious left-handed kick coming off Bumrah’s wrist to take the lead.
Nathan Lyon gloved Rana to the gully, and the game was still fast. Australia would be going full throttle from one minute to the next for about 80 minutes and then crashing headlong into India’s top order with the ball doing a lot. Except, somehow, that didn’t happen. Hazlewood’s edge went past the keeper, so many balls beat stumps or edges or fell short of the catchers, and the last pair remained in the crease. They didn’t seem sure why, but they were just trying to keep going and beating.
An hour and a half, facing 110 deliveries, this final measure stood out as the next best of the innings was 34. They added 25 runs and denied almost as many while trying to give Starc the bulk of the strike, notably thanks to the two spells of Bumrah. . Bumrah, as captain, meanwhile, went defensive, spreading the field although Starc attempted a few valuable big shots before the one that took him out.
It was undoubtedly frustrating for India. This put more overs into their bowlers. Out of a total of 104, a score of 25 was huge. All big tics according to cricketing wisdom. But the less tangible effect, the one that could not be “stated”, was to take away momentum from the game. More speed. The manic energy was gone. And as the pitch calmed down during the morning session, with the final pair showing the players how comfortably they were surviving, the Indian batters’ worries would also have eased. Rather than those 25 runs in two hours, would Australia have been better off stringing together 10 runs in two overs and then piling in India with a new ball and scattered minds on a pitch still fresh from the morning?
Instead, Yashasvi Jaiswal and KL Rahul had a lunch break to collect themselves and came out ready to settle down. It still wasn’t easy: there was a decent carry, Starc and Hazlewood were a handful ahead, both batters had to apply themselves. A few soft edges from Rahul failed to carry, a few aggressive shots from Jaiswal failed to connect. An occasional case has done so. But as the afternoon wore on, they never tried too hard. Hazlewood bowled his first 10 overs for nine runs. By the final hour of play, before a slight recovery, both hitters had strikeout rates in the 30s.
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What they have done, however, is make the game feel like normal Test cricket again. A cautious build-up on terrain that rewarded patience. They overcame spells of quicks, had overs from Lyon, Mitchell Marsh, Marnus Labuschagne, and after an unspectacular few hours of preventing things from moving forward quickly, they had built a partnership bigger than Australia’s score in the first innings, then bigger than India’s. By strain, it was 172.
The Australians faded to the point of missing small moments: Khawaja didn’t move his weight forward enough to reach a low-slip catch that he tapped with his fingertip, Smith threw far too wide towards Lyon as ‘a run out was in progress. Days two and three were always likely to offer the best batting. India will now look into day three with 10 wickets in hand. Australia considers a deficit that already stands at 218, and the prospect of hitting on day four when it could be bounce, not speed, a danger.