The first day of the fourth Test of Australia’s tour of India 2023 has become the first day of the series to not witness a team losing all its 10 wickets. Staying true to expectations, the pitch at the Narendra Modi Stadium is providing sporadic aid to batters as the last match of the series has provided enough hints of becoming the first one to continue till Day 4 at least.
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With the visiting captain winning the toss and opting to bat first for the third time in four matches, Indian bowlers toiled hard throughout the day to pick only four wickets. Not that the batters scored heaps of runs but it was unequivocally refreshing to see them spending time in the middle and not entering the playing area as mere “walking wickets”.
Due after the 80th over in Test cricket, a new ball was ordered by India captain Rohit Sharma after the 81st over of the Australian innings. The same was a decent decision provided how the old ball wasn’t doing anything with respect to assisting the bowlers.
However, poor execution on the part of the Indian bowlers saw Australia opener Usman Khawaja (104*) and all-rounder Cameron Green (49*) finishing the day with an unbeaten 116-ball 85-run partnership for the fifth wicket.
Sunil Gavaskar slams Umesh Yadav for second-rate over with second new ball in Ahmedabad Test
Calling the match for Star Sports Network in English, former India captain Sunil Gavaskar didn’t mince his words to slams India fast bowler Umesh Yadav (15-2-58-0), in particular. Introduced into the attack for his fifth spell of the day, Yadav bowled a substandard over before being replaced by all-rounder Ravichandran Ashwin (25-8-57-1).
With Green running a couple of runs off the first ball, the same was followed by him cutting Yadav for a boundary on the third delivery. The penultimate delivery of the over saw the right-handed batter nailing a straight drive for a four down the ground.
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What hurt India more than the 12 runs which Yadav leaked in his last over of the day was the lack of effort on the part of the bowler. Known to bowl in excess of 140 kmph per hour on a regular basis, Yadav bowled an over with a new ball at a speed of less than 130 kmph to completely look out-of-sorts in the last 30 minutes of the day.
“If you are going to bowl like this with a new ball, you might as well stay at deep fine leg [a common fielding position for pacers],” Gavaskar said on-air after being clearly unimpressed with the first six ball which Yadav bowled with the second new ball. Therefore, it wasn’t surprising at all when Sharma handed the new ball to Ashwin in the 84th over.
