
India bowling coach Morne Morkel has said that India bowlers missed the right length on Day 1 (Dec 6) of the second Border-Gavaskar Trophy (BGT) Test in Adelaide under the lights. The comments come as India have been almost batted out of the contest after just scoring 180 in their first innings.
“We wanted to bring stumps into play as much as we can, and I felt that last night with the ball moving around a bit. We missed that, we were slightly off the mark in finding the right length,” said Morkel while talking to reporters after the end of play on Day 2 (Dec 7).
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“At times, we [India in the first innings] were a touch wide, so we allowed the guys to leave a lot of balls. If you look at the history of pink ball Tests, that time of night if you bowl [in those areas], then you can pick up wickets,” he added
The wide lines allowed Australian batters to absorb the pressure by leaving the balls as they amassed 86 runs on Day 1 for the loss of just one wicket. On Saturday (Dec 7), they continued from where they let off and went on to score 337 in the first innings – taking a 157-run lead over India.
In the second innings, Australia had India on the ropes by the end of the day's play as the visitors were five down for 128 runs and were still trailing by 29 runs.
India made a horrible start in their second innings, losing KL Rahul in the third over at a team score of 12.
Yashasvi Jaiswal was the next to go after adding 30 runs for the second wicket with Gill. Scott Boland sent Jaiswal back before doing the same with Virat Kohli about 24 runs later.
Pant, meanwhile, came out all guns blazing and added quickfire 20 runs with Gill for the fourth wicket before Australia took two quick wickets to seize the advantage on Saturday.