The fourth match of ongoing Border Gavaskar Trophy is happening at Ahmedabad. After the grand opening of the day by the series of events of Australian and Indian Prime minister waving to the crowd and meeting the players. Australia won the toss and opted to Bat first.
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| Usman Khawaja |
After win in the Indore test match of the Border Gavaskar Trophy, Australians were pumped up for the Ahmedabad Test Match. Prime minister’s of both the countries meet with the players and participated in the national anthem before the match. Australian captain Steve Smith won the toss and opted to bat first.
By the looks of it pitch was looking really flat. Indian bowlers started with very indisciplined line and gave too many extras early on. These gave visitors chance to settle down a bit. The pitch had some uneven bounce the edges were not carrying to the slips. Australian started positively and scored some quick runs in first half hour. Soon after Umesh Yadav created a chance by edging Travis Head but the Indian keeper KS Bharat failed to grab the easy chance.
First hour was really hard for Indian team as Australians were scoring quick runs. After the drinks break Ravichandran Ashwin break the partnership by taking the wicket of Travis Head.
Marnus Labuschagne came to bat at no. 3 his stay on the crease doesn’t Last long and he clean bowled by Mohammad Shami. In the second session of the day Steve Smith and Usman Khawaja batted sensibly and scored runs for the team. Australia didn’t loose any wicket in the post lunch session and went back at Tea.
Just after the tea break Steve Smith loose his wicket, he was very unlucky as he had very poor dismissal. He edged a very straight delivery which hit the stumps. Soon after his dismissal Mohammad Shami clean bowled dangerous looking Peter handscomb. Australian were 170-4 and their promising start suffered a dent due to loss of two wickets in quick succession.
Usman Khawaja at the other end steadied the ship and kept on scoring the runs. He went on to score a very Hard fought hundred. He was applauded by his teammates and by the crowd. Cameron green and Khawaja made sure that Australia didn’t loose any more wickets and both the batsman went unbeaten. At the end of the day 1 Australia were 255-4.
Game is running from India’s hand as the Australian team scored good amount of runs without loosing many wickets. India has kept a check on runs and didn’t allow Australians to score freely in the Last session. As the pitch only going to deteriorate from here it will be important for them to bundle out Australians as early as possible on the Day 2.
Indians chances for WTC finals are also in the hands of New Zealand and Sri Lanka. So India need to defeat Australia in this test match to qualify directly to WTC Finals without depending on other team results.