New Delhi: Indian spinner Ravindra Jadeja returned career-best figures of 7-42 on Sunday to give India an unbeaten 2-0 lead in the Test series as they beat Australia by six wickets inside three days of a dramatic match. Helped to get.
Jadeja, an orthodox left-arm bowler, teamed up with fellow spinner Ravichandran Ashwin to bowl Australia out for 113 in the morning session when the tourists’ batting suffered, with New Delhi making more use of the sweep shot on a difficult pitch. through.
The hosts achieved their victory target of 115 in the second session, guaranteeing that they would retain the Border-Gavaskar Trophy in the four-match series.
They have won their last three series against Australia and are now close to making it to the final of the World Test Championship.
India lost captain Rohit Sharma, run out after a fluent 31 runs, and Virat Kohli, who crossed 25,000 international runs during his innings, was stumped for 20.
Nathan Lyon took two wickets and scored seven runs in the match.
Cheteshwar Pujara stood firm with 31 in his historic 100th Test to take his side home with the winning four, while wicketkeeper-batsman Srikar Bharat remained unbeaten on 23.
“We were ready for them to come out and play shots,” Rohit said of his team’s bowling plan.
“Our idea was not to panic and just hit the right areas while waiting for the mistake to happen, and that’s exactly what happened.”
He added: “So our focus was to keep it tight in the morning, and these guys (Jadeja and Ashwin) are experts at bowling in those conditions.”
Australia, who also lost the opening Test within three days, collapsed to 61-1 in 31.1 overs after losing nine wickets for 52 in just over 90 minutes of destruction.
Jadeja improved on his previous Test best of 7-48, with three first-innings hauls. Ashwin took the remaining three in Australia’s second innings.
Off-spinner Ashwin added to his nightly score after the left-hander hit a boundary after he caught Travis Head for 43, off three balls, in the first over of the day.
This loss hurts
Marnes Lebuschgan tried to take the attack to the opposition with a paddle shot and a reverse sweep but was bowled by Jadeja on 35.
David Warner’s concussion substitute Matt Renshaw looked clueless against spin in his eight balls at the crease, before missing an attempted sweep, giving Ashwin another lbw.
Wickets fell like ninepins and Lyon easily avoided Jadeja’s hat-trick. The bowler held on to wrap up the Australian innings, which began on a promising note towards the end of the second day.
“Everybody controls their game, some balls just have your name on them,” said captain Pat Cummins on the overuse of the sweeper. “But we need a review of shot selection.
“Both games were disappointing, especially this one,” he added. “We were ahead in the game and that doesn’t happen often in India. The loss hurts.”
Man-of-the-match Jadeja said the sweep shot was “not a good option” against him on a pitch that showed little bounce.
Akshar Patel opened the scoring with a counter-attacking 74 on Saturday, lifting India from a precarious 139-7 to just one short of Australia’s first innings total.
The left-hander made a key contribution of 114 runs for the eighth wicket to turn Australia around.
Lyon returned figures of 5-67 with his off-spin and was supported by fellow spinners Todd Murphy and debutant Matthew Kuhneman – both taking two wickets.
The third match will be played in Indore from March 1.
