On 17th December 2020 the first test match of the Border Gavaskar trophy between India and Australia started . Cricket fans had been eagerly wating for this 4 -match series between the two giants of world cricket .
The first test was a pink ball day and night test match and it was expected that there will be help for both pacers and spinners as the pink ball is made with a more pronounced seam and with likes of Jasprit Bumrah , M.shami for India and Pat cummis , M.starc and Josh hazlewood for Australia stumps were expected to fly .But the center of all the buzz was the match up between Virat Kohli and Steve Smith .These two batsman are modern day greats and they had been dethroning each other from the icc best test batsmen rank #1 postion for a long time , so it was indeed going to be a clash of titans.
Comes Thrusday ,17 December 2020 , Adelaide Oval , Adelaide .India won the toss and had opted to bat first.when India announced their playing XI a lot of debate happened on the selection of Prithvi Shaw over Shubhman Gill and of Wriddhiman Saha over Rishabh Pant. 9:30 AM (IST) Mitchell Starc had the ball and Prithvi Shaw was facing , first ball of the match by Starc to Shaw a short of length ball at 144 Kph with a hint of swing showed that it was going to be a tough day for indian bastmen . Some people joked that India would be 0/1 after the first over well that actually came true as the second ball by M.starc was a good length delivery angling away from off stump just broke through Shaw's defense and shattered the stumps which was accompanied by loud cheer from the Adelaide crowd.

In walked Pujara one of the most dependable batsman of the current Indian squad. He joined Mayank to stich a partnership 32 before Mayank perished to Pat Cummins . IND - 32/2 , next batsman walks in who gets a loud cheer from the Australian crowd and there is only one indian batsman who can get such loud cheer from the opposition crowd on his arrival is king Kohli(Virat Kohli) and Cummins vs Kohli has always been a delicious battle to watch out for . Pujara made a crucial partnership of 68 with Kohli before departing and kohli was joined by the vice captain of India Ajinkya Rahane. Kohli and and Rahane were batting really well and soon Virat reached a fifty .

Both batsmen were looking really solid especially Virat Kohli who was playing every ball from the middle of his bat and was smoothly marching to a certain century and also taking india to a great total. But events took a turn for the worst for India when on the last ball of the 77th over Rahane pushed the ball and called for a single to which kohli responded full heartedly but Rahane suddenly bailed out leaving captain Kohli stranded in the middle on the pitch , there was no turning back from there as Kohli was runout on 74.

This runout completely shifted the momentum towards Australia as india were all out for 244 on the the first session of the second day . From 188/4 to 244/10 showed the effect of Kohli's runout. The Australian openers made their way to the middle for their first innings. Owing to the disciplined length and lines bowled by the Indian bowlers Australia could only make 191, the highlights being Australian captain Tim Paine with his quick fire 73 from 99 balls was the highest scorer and Ashwin with the figures of 4/55 was the highest wicket taker and his best wicket probably was dismissing the best Australian batsman at the moment Steve Smith for just 1. India was really happy with the lead of 53. At the end of day 2's play India India was 9-1.

One of the most common notion is that in T20s the game changes in the blink of an eye and test is far away from such notions. well the Day 3 first session was the session that not only just ended the game but also completely changed the course of history for ever. It was proved that game can change even in test matches too. India who were right on top at the end of Day 2's play just frittered away their advantage even before their country men back home had a chance to get off their beds on an early Saturday morning. India in their second innings ended with 36/9 yes you read it right india could manage only 36 runs in their 2nd innings not a single indian batsman reached a double digit score. This was India's lowest score in test matches .

One session costed India the test match .But kudos to the Australian fast bowlers who bowled so well in the right areas . They just held a tight rope around necks of Indian batsmen and never let go. The highlights were Mayank Agarwal was the highest scorer for India with a score of 9 and for Australia there were multiple star performers Hazlewood had dream figures of 5/8 from his 5 overs while Pat Cummins had 4/21 from his 10.2 overs . India gave a total target of 90 runs to Australia to chase down with almost 2.5 days play left which they did quite comfortably and in the process lost 2 wickets . As no batsman of either side could make a massive difference , Tim Paine was adjudged the man of match for his aggressive knock of 73 runs off 99 balls.

This nightmare of a session was to leave a lot of marks and things were not going to get easy for India as their captain Virat Kohli wasn't going to be available for upcoming matches of the series as he was going on a paternity leave and also one of India's prime fast bowlers M.shami was injured and wasn't going to be available this meant that it was going to test the character of the team India for the upcoming boxing day test match(2nd test) and they knew that they have to play to the best of their ability to redeem themselves.
It's great that you have been able to recreate the excitement through your blog.
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