Australia’s vice-captain David Warner at the non-striker’s end tapped on his bat to applaud Matt Renshaw on Saturday at stumps. Captain Steve Smith led the applause from the balcony of the M Chinnaswamy Stadium pavilion.
Renshaw had seen off R Ashwin’s faster, straighter delivery that was headed straight for the pads had he played for turn. But the 20-year-old had not hurried himself into the shot. He patiently fended it and ensured the final delivery of the day would cause no harm to Australia.
In fact, the patience Warner and Renshaw had personified at the crease for the grueling 16 overs they were exposed to at the end of day one had ensured Australia finished Saturday in a position spectacular strength.
Certain deliveries stayed low, other skidded through, while a few of them even turned as if they had pitched on a minefield. But Renshaw and Warner had survived. Australia had survived.
Maintaining restraint
A rejuvenated India, however, bowled with military discipline on Sunday morning. Ashwin castled Warner’s stumps with a delivery that turned from outside leg to hit off. The early wicket gave the Indian bowlers a voice to go along with their discipline.
The batsmen had not been enticed to play aggressive shots on a difficult Bengaluru wicket. The Indian bowlers hoped to talk them into it. They mimicked Steve Smith and sledged the young Renshaw in a bid to provoke the visitors. But all they got in return was a clown face from Smith and a smile from Renshaw. Smith frustrated the Indians for a while, before Ravindra Jadeja snapped him. But Renshaw smiled and he defended. And, he did so for 196 deliveries.
The first innings of the Bengaluru Test was only Renshaw’s eighth for his country. But the raw left-hander had fought off the nerves and the various moods of the deck to keep India at bay for the longest period.
In Shaun Marsh, Renshaw had found the perfect ally. When Marsh walked in, the pressure was close to boiling point. The 33-year-old left-hander may have a decent record in Asia, but has perennially been a bad innings away from facing the axe. He had already had two of them in Pune. India were aware of the burden Marsh carried. They spoke to him, they attacked him, but they could not dismiss him.
Marsh survived two close DRS calls. He played better sweep shots than the ones he managed in Pune. Even though he is more elegance than graft, he adapted to the demands of the pitch and the game on Sunday.
Marsh had maintained restraint for 130 deliveries before he stepped out to Jadeja and lofted him over mid-on for a boundary. After that show of aggression, too, he went back to frustrating India by not engaging in any shot that could risk his wicket. The 197-ball 66 he scored will go down as one of his most important Test knocks.
Equally commendable was Warner’s effort. The X-factor in the current Australian batting unit, his game was defined by attack for years. Recently, Warner and the people who knew him claimed his game had matured. The spate of centuries at home testified the claims too. But Warner was yet to leave a mark in the sub-continent.
On Saturday, however, he shut out all his aggressive intents and dug in. Twenty three runs in 51 balls was not a usual David Warner stint, but it was what his team demanded. The cautious hour Warner and Renshaw produced was not typically Australia, either. But it was what the situation demanded.
Australia were 48 ahead with four wickets to spare at stumps on day two. It had required gritty batting on Sunday, but the foundation had been set on the first day itself.
The end to day one had been as applause worthy as the rest of the day, when Nathan Lyon ripped apart the Indian batting outfit. For the third time in three innings, India had caved in. On each instance, a spinner – Steve O’Keede in Pune, Lyon in Bengaluru – had stunned the hosts.
Repeating the same mistakes
Virat Kohli had promised in the pre-match conference that there would not be a repeat of the abysmal display India put up with the bat in the first Test. But, it appeared, as if those words hadn’t reached his teammates.
KL Rahul’s horror dismissal in the first innings of the last Test, when he danced down to O’Keefe and attempted an unnecessary lob to gift his wicket away, had triggered the dramatic Indian collapse. The show of aggression was not needed. In fact, that shot was in line with the trend of the match. India had desperately tried to impose themselves on the visitors, but with disastrous results.
India were expected to learn from these mistakes of the previous Test. A game down, and another loss away from losing the possibility of a series triumph, Kohli’s boys were expected to add caution to their repertoire, which is heavily defined by aggression.
With the ball turning at inconsistent heights off the Bengaluru wicket, a little caution was the need of the hour. Instead, the Indian batsmen poked at deliveries they should have left, left the ones they should have played and stepped out to those that could have been dealt with from within the crease.
An embarrassed Ajinkya Rahane could barely look up on his walk back to the hut after Matthew Wade had stumped him. The Mumbai batsman had stepped out to a Lyon delivery that went straight on. He had earned a boundary from a similar attempt earlier. This time, however, the ball beat his bat. The wicketkeeper fumbled it, but Rahane was too far off to complete a return. It landed the hosts an unnecessary blow.
Within a space of 10 overs, which is a short span in Test cricket, Karun Nair’s rush of blood robbed India of a vital batsman. For all the talk of the local boy being in better nick than Rahane, Nair committed the same blunder. He stepped out to O’Keefe, only to be beaten by the flight. Another stumping, another unnecessary blow.
Rahul, who top-scored for India with a 90, even spoke of how the Indian batsmen had planned to attack the Australian spinners. “As a batsman, you have to look to take some chances sometime. Karun and Ajinkya looked set and were getting the runs easily and the game plan was to attack the spinners whenever we could, but sometimes it doesn’t go your way and it’s a bad day for a few batsmen,” he opined.
But on a surface that had offered prodigious turn and after having succumbed to similar tactics in the first Test, the onslaughts could have waited.
Rahane and Nair’s flustered dismissals were painful because they came after the team’s captain and best batsman, Kohli, had lost his wicket to a brain-freeze moment. Lyon then ran riot among India’s lower-order. Australia had curbed their trademark aggression when it was their turn to bat. India, however, had opted not to contain their recently established attack mode.
As a result, Australia stand a chance to be the writers of the script the Border-Gavaskar Trophy could follow. If the tourists can pile on a sizeable lead over India’s paltry 189, it will leave Kohli and Co with a mountain to conquer.