IND vs AUS 2nd Test: Travis Head, bowlers shine as Australia put India on the back foot in Adelaide | Cricket News

ADELAIDE: India are chasing phantoms in the South Australian dusk, while Australia are well on the way to banishing their inner demons.
Rohit Sharma’s men ran into old nemesis Travis Head (a typically riproaring 140 off 141 balls; 178×4, 4×6) in the morning. By afternoon, with Head still cruising, they had that familiar gulp in their throats.
India then saw their much-vaunted top and middle order ripped apart by the revitalized Aussie pace trio of Boland, Cummins and Starc, who used their considerable resources to unleash the pink-ball’s deadly potential under artificial lights. A 141 kph corker from Cummins caught Rahul napping. Jaiswal nibbled at the first away-going delivery he faced from Boland and spooned a regulation edge.

Boland engineered a mirror-image dismissal of Kohli, except this time the ball was expected to angle in, but instead held its line to end the tentative 21-ball stay. Starc did what Starc does, bowling full to Gill and exposing some old frailties as the ball swung in and sneaked through. Cummins came back to end Rohit Sharma’s misery with an other-worldly delivery that angled in on a good length, had the batsman fronting the wrong line.
It’s hard to say whether Rohit would have been relieved or petrified — his horror 15-ball stay at No. 6 saw him getting hit on the head, getting out off a no-ball, unleashing an elegant drive and then getting that fatal dose of Cummins’ genius. It made for painful watching. At stumps on Day Two, India were hanging on by the skin of their teeth at 128/5 in their second innings, having lost half their side in 24 overs and still being 29 runs behind Australia, who rode on Head and Labuschagne’s knocks to get to 337 in reply to India’s 180 on Day One.

This is how the pink script unfolded for India, except no one gave Rishabh Pant the memo. Giving proceedings his own maverick twist, Pant charged down and smashed the first ball he faced from Boland over mid-off for four. Third ball of Boland’s next over, he reverse-scooped a length ball over the ’keeper and slips to the fence.
Boland was again at the receiving end as Pant, resembling a tumbling, whirling dervish intent on raging against the tide, pulled a short one from outside off and hit it behind square to the fence.
The entry of the equally audacious Nitish Kumar Reddy ensured that India hit three more boundaries in the last three overs. These two daredevils are now the last hope for a side whose campaign is straining at the hinges and in danger of coming to a creaking halt. The imperious Head, however, didn’t need to stretch the boundaries of the credulous.
India’s attack, apart from the excellent Bumrah (4/61 off 23 overs) and the under-bowled Ashwin wasn’t up to stopping the local hero’s rampage until too late. Morning didn’t show the day for India after Bumrah’s twin assault to remove McSweeney and Steve Smith had raised hopes. Head came out charging, hell-bent on playing his shots, and kept upping the ante until the second new ball was taken.
Labuschagne played determined second fiddle while he lasted, even rediscovering his stroke-making range to a degree, but Head was a different beast. He hit Ashwin straight down the ground, clearing the longer boundary with ease. He tore into Harshit Rana (16 wicketless overs for 86 runs), who had a nightmare day in only his second Test.
No matter what lengths or lines Rana bowled, it was the perfect hittable pace for Head, who hit eight boundaries off the hapless pacer to throw him completely off his poise.
Only Mohammed Siraj (4/98) redeemed himself somewhat after dropping Head on 78, but then ended up being involved in a distasteful and completely needless exchange with the batsman after dismissing him. By that time, Head had notched up the numbers, among others breaking his own record to score the fastest day-night Test hundred (111 balls). India’s bugbear across formats now averages 66.46 against them, at a strike rate of 98.9, while scoring 997 runs across red, white and pink balls since March 1, 2023. Then there were the matchwinning tons in the WTC final and the 50-over World Cup final. It’s almost as if India get PTSD whenever Head comes out to bat!