PERTH, November 22 (ANI): The battle for the Border-Gavaskar trophy kicked off today on day one of this season’s first Australia-India Test , with team India ending up with their lowest first innings total in Australia following a shambolic performance with the bat during the first two sessions of the match at Perth’s Optus Stadium.
Big names like KL Rahul (26), Virat Kohli (5) and Rishabh Pant (37) failed to get big scores. Youngsters Yashasvi Jaiswal (0), Dhruv Jurel (11), Washington Sundar (4) and Nitish Kumar Reddy (41) could not do much either.
Australia bundled out India for 150 runs in 49.4 overs.
Josh Hazlewood was the pick of the bowlers with figures of 4/29 while skipper Pat Cummins, Mitchell Marsh and Mitchell Starc got two wickets each.
This was the lowest total by India in the first innings against Australia, tying with the 150 scored against Aussies in Sydney back in 2000. Sachin Tendulkar top scored in that inning with 45 runs and India lost the match by an innings and 141 runs.
India had also scored 161 runs against the Aussies at Perth in 2012 and with this 150, they have registered their lowest first-innings total at Perth. Virat top scored in that inning with 44 runs and Australia won that match by an innings and 37 runs.
Also, in 1967, they scored 173 in their first innings at Melbourne, with skipper Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi top-scoring with 75. Australia won the match by an innings and four runs.
Coming to the ongoing Perth Test, Australia was struggling with the bat, having lost half their side before crossing 50 runs. They scored 67 runs for the loss of seven wickets at stumps.
India won the toss and elected to bat first.
India (Playing XI): KL Rahul, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Devdutt Padikkal, Virat Kohli, Rishabh Pant (wk), Dhruv Jurel, Nitish Reddy, Washington Sundar, Harshit Rana, Jasprit Bumrah (c), Mohammed Siraj.
Australia (Playing XI): Usman Khawaja, Nathan McSweeney, Marnus Labuschagne, Steven Smith, Travis Head, Mitchell Marsh, Alex Carey (wk), Pat Cummins (c), Mitchell Starc, Nathan Lyon, Josh Hazlewood. (ANI)
