IND vs AUS India 323 WICKET! Yadav c Bailey v Marsh 2 (India 315-9)
Australia win by 25 runs!
Australia 348-8 (50)
India 323 all out (49.2)
WICKET! Maxwell c Pandey b Ishant 41 (20 balls)
50th over: Australia 343-8 (Hastings 0)
Ishant Sharma with the challenge, and it’s...
SIX! A short ball but not short enough, and Maxwell utterly pounds that into the general Canberra population.
Four! The most outrageous shot of the day! A reverse-sweep to a fast bowler. More a reverse pull, even. How do you play that? How do you get any power on that, and time it? It was barely outside off, but Maxwell slashed it over backward point.
Four! Traditional cover drive. He’s like a fusion restaurant, mixing the classical and the avant-garde. Who is this man? It’s elevated, and four.
The fourth ball, he misses connection completely.
The fifth, four more, lofted straight over mid-off.
The sixth, and the last of the innings, a pull shot that he doesn’t entirely connect with, and the substitute fieldsman Pandey pulls off a catch in Rahane’s stead.
Ishant has the wicket, but has paid 18 runs for it in that over.
49th over: Australia 330-7 (Maxwell 23, Hastings 0)
Some over. The two wickets fall, but Maxwell is undeterred. First he ramps Yadav down through fine leg for four. Then he gets a wide full toss that he somehow drags to the on-side for four more.
WICKET! Wade run out (Yadav) 0 (2 balls)
They’re going down in clusters. Two leg byes from his first ball, then Wade’s second sees him a bit slow to the non-striker’s end, and Rohit drills the ball back to Yadav over the stumps.
WICKET! Faulkner b Yadav 0 (1 ball)
Congratulations, the Golden Globe goes to James Faulkner.
He might average 119 in the second innings, but this is the first, and his missed sweep shot sees the furniture disarrayed.
WICKET! Bailey c Rohit b Ishant 10 (7 balls)
48th over: Australia 319-5 (Maxwell 14)
Four! Ugly shot though. Maxwell just slogged at Ishant outside off, and top-edged him over short third man. Then a leg bye that hurt Maxwell, into the inside of his knee.
Bailey flicks the ball fine, but there’s a good save from Mann, who just took the catch to dismiss Smith. Three runs.
Brilliant backing up and running from Maxwell with a sore knee as Bailey drives straight, and Maxwell thundered back to the danger end for the second run.
But it brings Bailey undone in the end, as he tries to destroy the last ball of the over down the ground.
Doesn’t catch it cleanly, it goes low and flat towards the long-on boundary, but it’s double Sharma as Rohit comes across to take a fine catch off Ishant.
47th over: Australia 308-4 (Maxwell 9, Bailey 5)
Things have calmed down a bit now, though Bailey is calmly and industriously into his work. A two first ball, then another, then a single. Maxwell gets a couple. Yadav will be happy with seven from the over.
46th over: Australia 301-4 (Maxwell 7, Bailey 0)
Ishant Sharma Sharma Sharma breaks through. Almost got Maxi with one of those extravagant walloping cut shots at his first ball that missed. Then a wide, then two runs with some hard sprinting out to deep midwicket, but the wicket of Smith followed.
Maxwell raises the 300, however, and another big hitter has come in.
It’s BAILEY TIME.
WICKET! Smith c Mann b Ishant 51 (29 balls)
Strange shot, nearly got him six but he’s caught at long leg. Smith came way across his stumps, got outside off, tried to flick Ishant over square leg with an almost vertical bat, but got a very high edge behind square.
It nearly cleared the rope, would have on many grounds, but fell safely into Mann’s hands with a near vertical drop.
45th over: Australia 294-3 (Smith 51, Maxwell 1)
Marsh falls, Maxwell the next man out, the batsman crossed, and it’s immediately a four to raise Smith’s half-century!
Remarkably, that’s from only 27 balls.
And what a shot to do it with. A bit like what Maxwell played the other night at the MCG. A forehand slice, elbows in tight to get the bat angled back towards slip and then lash the short ball out square even though it wasn’t that wide.
Smith’s version goes for four, doesn’t quite have the same absurd power as Maxwell to lift it for six.
Maxwell gets off the mark in this city with a normal, sensible, conventional cut forone.
WICKET! Marsh c Kohli b Yadav 33 (42 balls)
You felt that was coming through his whole innings. Big swat across the line from Marsh, top edge, Kohli came in from the deep and claimed the swirling ball as it dropped from the pregnant grey clouds above.
44th over: Australia 286-2 (Marsh 32, Smith 45)
How easy is that? Six, as Kumar dishes up a full toss at Steve Smith’s hip, and the batsman pulls it over the fence at deep backward.
Even when he’s not on strike, Smith is on point. Twice in a row he burns back to the danger end for a second run after Marsh goes down the ground.
43rd over: Australia 274-2 (Marsh 28, Smith 38)
Sixer! Straight from Sydney, and almost went to Sydney. Big on-drive from Smith from a slot ball, deep into the crowd.
Maybe the umpires can give latitude on switch-hit wides, because Smith shapes to reverse-sweep Ishant, and the bowler fires down leg, but no wide is called.
Aside from that though, Smith takes a two, another two, a single, then Marsh ends the over with a flick through square leg for four.
42nd over: Australia 259-2 (Marsh 24, Smith 27)
Smith on the curtain rail across his stumps, cruising either side of the wicket when he feels like it.
He opens up the off-side to Yadav, and drives through wide long-on. Yadav sprints across and slides, but his feet are too far back and they clip the rope as he knocks the ball back. Four.
Now it’s Marsh trying to injure a bowler, nearly taking out Rishi Dhawan. Two doubles to close the over. Runs galore.
A question from Matt Harris on email. “On the rules around wides: if Jadeja had bowled down the left hand side and Warner hadn’t hit it, would that be a wide in virtue of having travelled down the [original] leg side, or a dot ball in virtue of having travelled down the [now] off side?”
My understanding is that it would still in theory be a wide, because the leg stump is the leg stump forever and ever amen. I love the switch hit, but I reckon the rules should reflect that if a batsman changes stance, there’s no longer such a thing as a wide down leg. Bowlers need some recourse.
The PA broadcasting ‘Am I Ever Gonna See Your Face Again.’ Always risky in this country.
41st over: Australia 248-2 (Marsh 19, Smith 21)
Six! Kumar back, and Smith immediately puts him over the fence. Shikhar Dhawan was out there at deep midwicket, maybe if he’d been right on the rope he might have jumped to intercept that, but even that might be wishful thinking.
Amazing Smith got so much power in that shot, just flipped away.
Two singles, a two, a leg bye. Runs coming now. Smith has passed Marsh already.
40th over: Australia 237-2 (Marsh 18, Smith 12)
Rishi Dhawan back, even though India have got through their fifth-bowler allotment thanks to he and Mann.
Not so easy for Dhawan now, as Smith moves across his stumps so much. One such shot is pulled fine for four, another through the same region for three.
Just finds gaps that don’t exist for other batsmen.
39th over: Australia 229-2 (Marsh 17, Smith 5)
Jadeja doing well, with a couple of singles only, and a ball that makes Steve Smith roll in the dirt. He shaped to sweep, then lost his footing and fell over backwards. Luckily he was forward from the stumps.
But Jadeja undoes his work with a full toss at the end of the over, that Sniffer duly clubs square for four.
38th over: Australia 222-2 (Marsh 15, Smith 0)
No other jiggery-pokery with the batting line-up, as Itchy Smith comes out to tweak his pads, itch his box, jiggle his knees, twinkle his toes, wrinkle his nose and produce some witchery.
Plays and misses first ball, nice delivery from Yadav, zipped past the edge. Then driving to the field for a dot next ball.
The scoreboard ends the over at a Full Richie.
5WICKET! Finch c Sharma b Yadav 107 (107 balls)
Breakthrough number two - Finch goes for a big wipe across the line, top edge, spiralled high over wide mid-on, Kohli was coming in from midwicket but Sharma held his nerve running back, never the most reliable man in the field, and held the catch as it fell behind him.
37th over: Australia 220-1 (Finch 107, Marsh 14)
Dicey stuff from Marsh! First a slog sweep that shows all three stumps to Jadeja, but Marsh gets bat on it and goes through midwicket for four. Then Marsh misses a sweep, is trapped straight in front, and is somehow not given. Maybe it hit him outside the line? Maybe, but it looked sackable for me.
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