In a Test where time is clearly going to be a precious commodity, it was a little odd to see Alex Carey and Nathan Lyon adding 22 runs in ten overs on the third morning at the Gabba.
In three out of their four innings in this series, India have yet to reach 200 and, at 51 for 4, a fourth is possible. There are also some patterns emerging about how Australia are working their way through the batting.
It was the full ball that struck next for Starc, but this one owed much more to Marsh. Shubman Gill drove, got a thick edge, and Marsh leapt to his left at gully. “The Bison can fly,” said Ravi Shastri on SEN radio, in reference to Marsh’s nickname. Gully is the position filled by Cameron Green when he’s in the side and he has held some stunning catches. Marsh could barely control himself in the celebrations.
“Since I’ve come back into the Test team, fielding at gully is probably the most nervous I get because Greeny’s probably going to go down as the best ever, and if you drop one there they always compare you to Greeny,” Marsh said. “The boys are always into me about how slow I move and how I can’t jump or move in the field, so any time I can do something like that – I probably didn’t even need to dive to be fair, but thought I’d add a bit mayo.”
The first ball of Hazlewood’s next over took Virat Kohli’s glove as it also climbed from a length but fell short of the bowler in his follow through. A couple of overs later, Starc made another one jump at Kohli, who did well to keep the ball down towards the vacant short leg area.
With the threat of rain looming, Rahul hooked a sharp bouncer from Hazlewood towards fine leg. Starc sprinted around the rope and made a superb sliding save to keep the batters to a single, meaning Kohli was on strike.
Hazlewood’s next ball was in a wide channel outside off, but as he does often these days, Kohli played away from his body with a drive, it took the edge and Carey pouched the catch. In an instant, as Hazlewood began his celebration, Australia’s fielders also made a beeline for Starc, who was being high-fiving as though the wicket would go in his tally. It was, at the very least, a brilliant assist. Like in the case of Jaiswal, Kohli’s second-innings hundred in Perth is starting to look like an outlier.
To add to India’s pain, moments after Kohli had walked off, so did the rest of the players, before another ball was bowled as the rain arrived in what would become a Groundhog Day experience.
In a long Test series, duels take shape. Bumrah is all over Nathan McSweeney, Starc is dominating Jaiswal, Cummins has it over Pant (although nothing is quite as one-sided as Matt Henry’s record against Zak Crawley across the Tasman). The rain may prevent Australia pushing on for victory in Brisbane but it is starting to feel like their attack is getting a hold over India’s batting line-up that will be hard to break.
