Follow UsAt the end of the first day’s play, Australia found themselves in a pretty comfortable position, at 327/3, with Travis Head and Steve Smith sharing a 250-run partnership, the first in an ICC final. The duo picked up exactly from where they left on day one, with Smith taking the attack to the opposition.
With two quick boundaries early in the day, Smith brought up his 31st Test century, his second against India in an ICC knock-out fixture, with the first one way back in 2015 during the ODI World Cup semi-final in Sydney.
While Australia did lose Head relatively early, late partnerships and cameos from the likes of Pat Cummins, Alex Carey and Nathan Lyon helped them to get to a huge total of 469. But the signs were clear that the pitch had some inconsistencies in terms of bounce, which didn’t help the batters.
The Australian bowlers exploited that, with some brilliant execution with the ball. Cummins got the ball to move back into the right-handed Rohit before Scott Boland removed the in-form batter, Shubman Gill. In the post-match presentation, Boland spoke about that, stating that he was pretty ‘nervous’ before the start of the finale.
“Really exciting, pretty nervous before the start of this Test but nice to get into this game. He’s (Gill) a very good player, nice to knock him over early. We are in a very good spot now,” Boland spoke about the day’s play to the broadcasters, Star Sports.
India finished the day on 151/5, despite a valuable contribution from Ravindra Jadeja, who scored a 51-ball 48, and Boland called it a ‘strong’ day’s display. But what was more important for Boland was that the pitch behaved differently, with inconsistent bounce, which he insisted that batting would be harder for India. Boland himself was a vital cog of the Australian setup on day two, ending the day with figures of 1/29 in 11 overs, including four maidens.
“We are strong after 2 days, the pitch is a bit up and down and hopefully it will be harder for India to bat tomorrow. It felt like that in the middle, a couple balls taking off, a couple keeping low,” Boland concluded.