In the second Test match of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy 2023, India defeated Australia by six wickets at the Arun Jaitley Stadium in Delhi.
Australia won the toss and elected to bat first. An obvious choice on Indian track, it looked like the Aussies were on right mode to post a massive total on the board. But to counter them, team India were all prepared. While it looked like the Aussies were on a roll, Ashwin emerged out of nowhere to grab Steve Smith and Marnus Labuschagne’s wicket in one over. Other than Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Mohammad Shami and Axar Patel were also at the fine best.
While batting in the first innings, team India struggled as well as the team got bundled for one less run than the Aussies. While captain Rohit Sharma (32) and KL Rahul (17) looked decent, none of the other batters were firmed on the crease to give India a massive lead. Only Virat Kohli (44) and Axar Patel (74) were the saving grace for India as they both took India to a respectable score of 262/10.
For Australia with the ball, Nathon Lyon picked a fifer and bowled at just economic rate of 2.3. With him, 2 wickets each were also scalped by Mathew Kuhnemann and Todd Murphy. One wicket was also claimed by captain Cummins in the first innings.
The Aussies looked stable towards the beginning of their inning on the first day as Usman Khawaja (81) smashed an impressive half century. Peter Handscomb (72) also scored fifty which had helped the visitors to reach 263 runs.
With the ball in the first innings for India, Mohammad Shami grabbed four wickets while three wickets each were taken by top Indian spinners Ravindra Jadeja and Ravichandran Ashwin.
In the second innings with the bat for the Australian side, Travis Head (43) and Marnus Labuschagne (35) were the only batters to score in two digits. No other batter managed to bat enough deliveries and were quickly bowled out for just 113 runs.
On day three, India went all guns blazing with the red ball as Jadeja picked seven wickets to scramble Australia’s inning to just 113 runs.
Team India firmly chased down the total but lost four wickets as well. Rohit (31) and Pujara (31) again batted well which was enough to secure victory. Few contributions from Kohli (20), Shreyas Iyer (12) and Srikar Bharat (23) also helped in the chase.
With only 113 to defend, Aussie bowlers had hardly any support. The team still managed to pick four wickets in which two were taken by Nathon Lyon and one was grabbed by Todd Murphy.
Ravindra Jadeja was named Man of the Match for his electrifying all round performance. With this win, India is now 2-0 up in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy.
Scorecard:
Australia: 263/10, Overs 78.4, Usman Khawaja 81, Mohammad Shami 4/60
India: 262/10, Overs 83.3, Axar Patel 74, Nathon Lyon 5/67
Australia: 113/10, Overs 31.1, Travis Head 43, Ravindra Jadeja 7/42
India: 118/4, Overs 26.4, Cheteshwar Pujara 31*, Nathon Lyon 2/49