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Australia vs India, 3rd Test: 5 Talking points from Day 3

Australia v India - 3rd Test: Day 3
Australia v India - 3rd Test: Day 3

After another attritional day of Test cricket, India were in the driver’s seat at the end of the second day’s play. The pitch had started showing signs of life and the Indians took the field on day 3 with hopes of removing the Aussie openers as quickly as possible.

The first session was totally dominated by the Indian bowlers as 4 wickets fell for 81 runs. Bumrah was the chief destroyer as he wreaked havoc with his pace and awkward bounce and got the wickets of Marcus Harris and Aaron Finch.

He continued to trouble the Australians after lunch and it looked like the Aussies had no idea on how to deal with his yorkers. Tim Paine did show some fighting spirit for a short while before nicking through to the keeper. Australia conceded a massive lead of 292 but Pat Cummins struck demolished the Indian middle order and restricted India to 54-5 at the end of day’s play.

Here are a few talking points from today's play at MCG.


#5 Jadeja’s return to the squad

Ravindra Jadeja managed to pick two scalps in his maiden Test match down under
Ravindra Jadeja managed to pick two scalps in his maiden Test match down under

On overseas tours, Jadeja has always been the second choice spinner for India even though his record outside Asia is marginally better than his counterpart Ravi Ashwin. In the first match, he missed out since Ashwin was once again preferred but the choice to pick Yadav instead of Jadeja for the second test was a blunder and today he showed the team management what they missed in the defeat at Perth.

Consistency and the tendency to bowl an over at a very quick rate has always been Jadeja’s strength and today was no different. He perfectly utilized the rough created by the Aussie pacers to trouble the Aussie batsmen.

He just kept nagging away by bowling as much as he can into the rough spot and finally got the reward for it as Khawaja was caught at short leg while defending on the front foot. With the pitch opening up, he will have a much bigger role to play in the second innings.

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