Mitchell Starc rocks India with brilliant fifer during opening day of Adelaide Test

Australian fast bowler Mitchell Starc scalped 6/48 from 14.1 overs as India were all out for 180 in their first innings. The left-arm pacer began with 66 wickets in Pink Ball matches and ended with 72 wickets so far with an innings yet to be played. Nitish Kumar Reddy was the best batter for India as he scored 42 runs from 54 balls. 

Rohit Sharma won the toss and chose to bat as Dhruv Jurel, Devdutt Padikkal, and Washington Sundar were rested. In their place came Rohit Sharma, Shubman Gill, and R. Ashwin. On the other hand, Australia made just one change to their team with Josh Hazlewood being replaced by Scott Boland. 

On the very first ball of the game, Starc dismissed Yashasvi Jaiswal for a golden duck. Shubman Gill then came in and played a few delightful shots to give India a good start. KL Rahul also played a few adventurous shots as the second wicket pair added 69 runs. 

Dismal Indian batting folds yet again in the first innings 

Pat Cummins got his premier fast bowler back into the attack and Starc delivered the wicket of KL Rahul for 37. Virat Kohli then perished caught in the slips to give Starc his 3rd wicket of the day. Shubman Gill who batted well for his 31 runs was out LBW to Scott Boland as India went into the interval at 82/4. 

More wickets fell during the 2nd session as Rohit Sharma batting at number six was out for just 3 runs. Rishabh Pant batted sensibly to score 21 runs but a short ball by Pat Cummins saw the ball take the edge of Pant’s bat to be caught by Marnus Labuschagne. 

R. Ashwin came out to bat with positive intent and scored run-a-ball 22. Mitchell Starc then dismissed Ashwin and Harshit Rana in a space of four balls as India slid to 141/8. Nitish Reddy then added 35 runs for the ninth wicket with birthday boy Jasprit Bumrah. The 31-year-old Indian pacer was out for a duck when he was snapped in the slips by Usman Khawaja. 

Nitish Reddy, who had hit 3 fours and 3 sixes, went for a huge slog but was caught by Travis Head to give Starc his 6th wicket. India were all out for just 180 having lost their last nine wickets for 111 runs to endure yet another miserable first innings during the ongoing tour. 

Speaking to the home broadcasters at the end of India’s batting innings in Adelaide, Starc said, “Feel like the ball has been coming out well, we did not play that bad, they played better than us in Perth, The pink ball goes through weird patches, won't do much and then does go, day 1 you expect with a little bit of grass to do a bit, maybe with the forecast we have it dries out a bit later on but apart from the first hour when we were a bit wide we were good.”