India vs Australia (Photo by Paul Kane/Getty Images)
Australia had a great start to the second Test of the ongoing Border-Gavaskar Trophy (BGT 2024-25) with a near-perfect opening day. The day started with the star pacer Mitchell Starc (6/48) trapping Yashasvi Jaiswal in front on the very first ball of the match. KL Rahul and Shubman Gill stabilized the innings with a partnership of 69 before the former’s dismissal brought about a collapse.
Notably, Team India (IND) lost four wickets for 18 runs in the space of seven overs to be reeling at 87/5. Nitish Kumar Reddy (42 off 54) then displayed his most audacious strokes to lift India past 150. Reddy was the last man out with India’s score on 180 and Starc completing his 6-fer.
Australia (AUS) got through to stumps losing just Usman Khawaja to the birthday boy, Jasprit Bumrah. Nathan McSweeney and Marnus Labuschagne put up a partnership currently unbeaten on 62*, to decidedly put Australia ahead in this Test.
Meanwhile, here are the best stats from Day 1 of AUS vs IND Pink ball Test:
9 – Yashasvi Jaiswal’s dismissal was the ninth instance of an Indian batter getting out on the first ball of a Test match. In all, he became the seventh batter, as the great Sunil Gavaskar had suffered this fate thrice in his illustrious career
6 – Mitchell Starc taking the wicket off the first ball was the sixth instance of an Australian bowler doing so. Each of the last three instances have been by Starc while all of the previous three came in the last century.
2 – Starc became the second bowler, after Pedro Collins, to take a wicket off the first ball of a Test match on three different instances. The fiery Aussie pacer had delivered the same fate to Rory Burns in 2021 and Dimuth Karunaratne in 2016.
2 – With his 15th fifer in Test cricket, Mitchell Starc moved to second place on the list of most fifers in Test cricket among left-arm pacers. Wasim Akram stands first with 25, while Starc broke the tie he had with his compatriot Alan Davidson.
4 – Jasprit Bumrah became the fourth Indian batter to get out on a duck on his birthday in Tests. Syed Kirmani, Venkatapathy Raju, and Ishant Sharma are the others.
1 – Mitchell Starc registered his career-best bowling figures of 6 for 48 in Tests. Incidentally, the best bowling figures in ODIs (6/43) also came against India.
4 – Starc registered his fourth five-wicket haul in pink-ball Tests, no other bowler has even three.
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