Australia v India: first Test, day two – live!

26th over: Australia 42-2 (Labuschagne 23, Smith 1) Who will blink first? Shami keeps burrowing the ball in towards the stumps. Marnus eventually finds a single to turn over the strike. Smith nails an off-drive but straight to the field.

25th over: Australia 41-2 (Labuschagne 22, Smith 1) And a second maiden, this from Bumrah to Smith. Happy to defend on the front dog, until the length shifts and he slips under a couple of short balls.

24th over: Australia 41-2 (Labuschagne 22, Smith 1) After the day’s events so far, old mate Labuschagne decides it’s time to dust off the trusty old pull shot. Miscues it. Doesn’t get out. Put it away, son. Shami bowls a maiden.

23rd over: Australia 41-2 (Labuschagne 22, Smith 1) You will not believe it. You cannot believe it. Labuschagne has been dropped again.

THREE TIMES NOW.

This the simplest of the lot. Plays a pull shot, top edges, looping to square leg maybe 20 yards from the bat, and Prithvi Shaw has to backpedal a bit and has some sun in his eyes, but still. Just palms it over his shoulder for a run.

Which brings Smith on strike, who is almost dropped at second slip immediately. An edge, dying as it gets there, and wouldn’t quite have reached I don’t think. And it looks to me like they have come a bit closer since the break.

22nd over: Australia 40-2 (Labuschagne 21, Smith 1) A maiden from Shami to Smith. An interesting email in from Aditya Anchuri.

“Bumrah’s drop is a perfect example of what happens when you play too much T20 and train for too much white ball cricket. The bias in T20 is saving runs, so people are trained to ‘save’ sixes in those situations rather than just focusing on catching, and that’s how their muscle memory works. Whereas in Test cricket it almost doesn’t matter if you catch the ball outside the boundary and give away 6, I feel that the bias should always be about catching the ball – and if you happen to be within the field of play, you’ve got a wicket.”

21st over: Australia 40-2 (Labuschagne 21, Smith 1) And as we say that, another edge through slip for four! Labuschagne has three of his four boundaries that way. On the bounce past Kohli. Marnus gets his defence in order for the next five balls.

20th over: Australia 36-2 (Labuschagne 17, Smith 1) And we’re back. Back in the hands of Shami, who drops in a bouncer that has Labuschagne gangling and shoving the ball away for an awkward single to square leg. Hasn’t looked fluent at all today, the first drop. India can’t afford to give him the chance to become so.

We’re in a contest here. Australia’s two most important bats at the crease, and India’s bowling going beautifully. Their fielding less so. Two chances for Labuschagne already. Put your feet up, we’ll keep posting when there’s more to post.

19th over: Australia 35-2 (Labuschagne 16, Smith 1) Bumrah gets an over to try to make amends, but it doesn’t come that soon. A maiden to Smith, and that brings the non-lunch long break.

18th over: Australia 35-2 (Labuschagne 16, Smith 1) Right, the Twins are together at last. Facing Shami. Marnus gets a leg bye. Smith gets off the mark but hopping up and stabbing a run off his hip. Shami bowls short, Labuschagne hooks, and he’s dropped! Horribly, comically dropped at fine leg by Bumrah. A top-edged hook travelling pretty quickly, Bumrah comes around to greet it, but he thinks that he’s closer to the boundary than he is. So he jumps up high, thinking he might need to tap the ball back into play like he would in the IPL. He’s got two metres of space behind him though. And his jump means that he spills the ball in mid-air, dropping it down by the rope and over for four. He had space to just stand his ground and take that catch. Australia should have been 3 for 31.

17th over: Australia 29-2 (Labuschagne 12) Last ball of the over, and Burns falls at last! He’s battled through an hour and fifty minutes of the first session, and seen off some excellent opening bowling, so to some extent he’s done his job even with such a low score. Faced 41 balls in so doing. Couldn’t cope with the last of them though, as Bumrah swings it in a middle, into the right-hander from over the wicket, and nails him on the ankle in front of middle. Burns takes the review, and it’s umpire’s call for clipping leg stump, but that just looked morally out when it was live. The bowler deserved that decision.

16th over: Australia 29-1 (Burns 8, Labuschagne 12) Good bouncer to start from Shami, who has Labuschagne hopping and lucky not to pop up a catch. Another good ball squares him out and takes a big edge for four! Through the gap between slip and gully this time. Marnus is living on luck. Not so for his third boundary, which he smartly directs off his hip through a very fine leg as Shami bowls not short enough.

15th over: Australia 20-1 (Burns 7, Labuschagne 4) Here he comes then, the man with the golden touch, Champagne Labuschagne. Who picked that Burns would not be the first wicket to fall for Australia? Marnus pulls out the absurdist leaves from ball one, dancing across to Bumrah. Then be nicks one past the keeper for four! Dropped catch if you want to be tough. That catch was going to first slip, but would have fallen short. So Saha goes for it, and gets a glove at full stretch. But only a touch.

A lot of balls have fallen short, in both innings. Might need to shuffle the slips closer.

There it is for India! Reward for toil. Bumrah around the wicket, fast, and the ball decks in at the left-handed Wade. Nails him a bit high but well back and dead in front, and Wade’s reluctant DRS review shows the ball hitting the very top of middle, flush enough to avoid umpire’s call.

14th over: Australia 16-0 (Wade 8, Burns 7) India desperate for a wicket as reward for all this disciplined bowling. A few times the ball has been squeezed between bat and pad on a defensive stroke, and the cordon keeps going up as though they were stone dead appeals. Burns squeezes two more runs through the gully from a half edge.

13th over: Australia 14-0 (Wade 8, Burns 5) Bumrah comes on for Umesh in the old do-si-do, and batters Wade on the body again. This time the short ball hits him on the arm. They’ll be wanting to marinate and then crumb Wade once they’ve finished tenderising him. 14 runs in 13 overs.

12th over: Australia 14-0 (Wade 8, Burns 5) Shami comes around the wicket to Wade and is bowling a shorter length at him, up the body and making him think. Again Wade sees out the over and farms the strike, this time by getting up on his toes and cutting with no backswing into the gully gap for a run.

11th over: Australia 13-0 (Wade 8, Burns 5) Another full over of Umesh to Wade, except this time Wade drives a single from the last ball and keeps strike.

Neil Titterington writes in. “A strange thing occurred last night between me leaving the ABC commentary in the car, walking into my house, patting the dog and turning on Channel 7.

“A sedate contest where two wickets had been taken for a reasonable amount of runs had suddenly become a gladiatorial contest where the chief protagonist was Cameron Green, aka the new Keith Miller! Somehow with, at this stage, bowling figures of 6-0-0-14, Cam Green had been transformed into a behemoth of the world game who was slaying his opponents with both bat and ball, and probably by just looking at them as well.”

“I genuinely had to jump online and check the scorecard and (of course) the Guardian live blog to see what heroic feats I had missed in the last 60 seconds. There were none. But this did not stop the Channel 7 team from pontificating about the Herculean endeavours that Our Cameron will achieve in the game as a Milleresque all-rounder. Anyway, on with the Cam Green show…”

You just wait until he bats, Neil.

10th over: Australia 12-0 (Wade 7, Burns 5) Mohammed Shami gets his first run in place of Bumrah. He bowls a tighter line, making Burns play almost everything and making him aim towards the leg side. Burns does scrabble a couple of runs off his pads.

9th over: Australia 10-0 (Wade 7, Burns 3) Umesh around the wicket to Wade, and hits him in the body! Wade wanted to go under the short ball but it wasn’t short enough and he wasn’t quick enough. He won’t mind though, likes a good cricket ball to the chest to get the heart pumping. Another maiden.

8th over: Australia 10-0 (Wade 7, Burns 3) This is much like India’s start yesterday, when the Australian bowling was hostile and accurate and gave no scoring chances away. The difference is that the Indian bowlers haven’t got that early wicket. Two singles nudged away from Bumrah’s over.

7th over: Australia 8-0 (Wade 6, Burns 2) Another maiden over from Umesh to Wade, who is happy to play the Test opener’s game of leave, leave, block.

6th over: Australia 8-0 (Wade 6, Burns 2) Wade takes the first run of the day from Bumrah, a tap-and-run single, after which Joe Burns gets off the mark! That’s significant. Too straight from Bumrah so Burns can glance it for two, urged back for the second by Wade. Makes it with a sprint. Bumrah bounces him, and there’s a raucous appeal from the cordon as the ball comes off his shoulder and through for a catch. Burns barely picked up that short ball, he’d hardly moved before it hit him. Got lucky that he wasn’t hurt. No bat involved either.

5th over: Australia 5-0 (Wade 5, Burns 0) Umesh loses the radar, leg side, gives Wade a couple of free leaves. Back on the stumps to draw a block. That makes 27 scoreless deliveries for Australia. Two slips and a gully, not a very attacking field with a couple of players around the point region, but they’re the two that Wade gets between with the first runs of the day, forced off the back foot for four! Good one. Follows up with a single, and for the first time today the bowlers will have to change lines between the right-hander and the left. Umesh is bang on straight away, just on the off stump, but short enough for Burns to shoulder arms.

4th over: Australia 0-0 (Wade 0, Burns 0) Meanwhile, Bumrah tests out Burns. Draws a little edge from him first ball that bounces into the gully, then has him falling across his front foot and playing across his pad to keep a ball out of his stumps. Lets him leave the next few though. Got to get that line across. Still no score.

3rd over: Australia 0-0 (Wade 0, Burns 0) Umesh continues, and he’s turning this into an excellent spell to Wade. Movement again to just beat the edge, then the other way crashing into the pad. A wide tempter, left along, then a straight one that squares him up. Three scoreless overs to start.

2nd over: Australia 0-0 (Wade 0, Burns 0) Bumrah off his short approach, and allows Burns to leave the first four balls. The fifth draws a solid forward defence which is roundly applauded by the crowd. Not a great sign for a batsman, but at least he has support.

1st over: Australia 0-0 (Wade 0, Burns 0) Umesh Yadav opens the bowling. Interesting, you would have assumed that Bumrah and Shami would do it. Bumrah is warming up and will take the other end. Umesh bowls a good line across the left-hander, a couple of times beating the outside edge, but the ball doesn’t make contact with the bat at any stage in the over.

The Australians are about to bat. Will there ever be as much focus on a Joe Burns innings in his life as this one? Perhaps the one in the second innings.

Matthew Wade may be a makeshift opener, but being the ball of confidence that he is, he elects to face the first ball.

Abhijato is feeling the fear of big things to come. “This OBO shall guide me through the morning once again as I try to survive my ongoing online classes. Our curriculum is finished, and most teachers are revising intensively because of the end-of-year exam which often turns out to be life-defining for Indians … I compose this mail during a short break in between classes, even as the scoreline does not inspire confidence in me.”

A surrender this morning, bowled out within 4.1 overs despite having four wickets in hand overnight. That’s poor. The score is little different to the 250 they made here two years ago, but that felt like a triumph after Pujara’s rearguard masterclass. This feels like a waste. They’ll need the antithetical bowling performance to this batting.

There’s a reason that Shami has been shuffled down to 11 in the order. He has shown no appetite for the contest while batting lately, noticeably through the tour matches. He gets a short ball, can’t cope, and gloves it up in the air to land in the hands of short leg.

93rd over: India 244-9 (Bumrah 4, Shami 0) The last pair, and Bumrah is nearly bowled by Starc after swishing at a ball the just misses the off stump. Bumrah finishes off the over better with a cover drive for four.

That didn’t take long. Umesh has a huge swipe, gets some variety of edge on it, and hits it very high between mid-on and mid-off. Wade gets under that high ball from cover in the end and takes it lunging forward.

92nd over: India 240-8 (Umesh 6, Bumrah 0) That’s the stuff! Nice and simple, Umesh shuffles back in his crease and bashes Cummins over mid-on for four! Took on the fuller length. Cummins goes short next, so Umesh backs away and baseballs at it. Misses. Ducks a shorter ball, has another fresh-air swing, then dinks a single.

91st over: India 235-8 (Umesh 1, Bumrah 0) India’s only hope now is some true tail-end clouting. Bumrah made a first-class 50 a few days ago in the SCG tour match for the first time in his career, but this bowling is a different level.

Except Saha doesn’t do anything of the sort. Starc takes the ball, the key man that Saha needs to see out. And instead of doing that, Saha plays an airy drive at a wide ball and edges it off the angled bat to his rival keeper.

That is an absolutely appalling shot.

I know we sometimes bang on about shot selection when it’s not warranted, but in the circumstances of the innings that was purely stupid.

90th over: India 234-7 (Saha 9, Umesh 1) Cummins knocks over Ashwin, then bowlers a similar beauty to Umesh Yadav for his first ball. Somehow it misses the edge as he gropes forward. The Indian quick manages to survive the over, even edging a run. Saha will have to take the senior role very strongly.

Wrong, it’s Cummins to start the day, and he starts it with a wicket! A bouncer to Ashwin first ball, a length ball the second, then a peach with the third ball, pitched up but bouncing and decking away, and Ashwin is on the move across his stumps and pokes at it, fearing it will deck in to hit him on the pad. Instead it leaps, takes the edge high on the bat and flies through to the wicketkeeper. Australia’s ideal start.

Murray Henman is similarly adjusting to Australia’s bold new economy.

“The one advantage of not having full time work these days is the freedom to watch the cricket uninterrupted. Looking forward to an interesting day’s play – though being in Brisbane, it’s a bit weird not having the game here.”

We’ll bring the caravan to you in a few weeks, Murray, provided we’re allowed to come up from Sydney.

A reader who I will only name as Tom, because he sagely says that you can never be sure who’s reading, has got in touch.

“It’s the second day of my new job, WFH (up on the roof as it’s sunny here today) trying to get my old head to learn new things that I need to understand before I get going. I will not be distracted by the cricket!”

Hmm. No? I want a job where I can go on the roof when I feel like. Actually I often can go on the upper level of a stadium, which is similar. No complaints then.

Kohli has gathered his Indian team into a circle and is giving them one hell of a pep talk. He really wants his charges to go into today believing they can compete, rather than hoping to survive. Kohli’s run-out last night was such a vital moment – he and Rahane threw that wicket away, and it let Australia back into the match.

Here’s yesterday’s match report, including the brain-fade in question.

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