Bumrah, Siraj and Labuschagne headline fast-moving Day 4 at MCG

Jasprit Bumrah became the first bowler in the history of the sport to pick 200 wickets at an average under 20 as his massive influence was felt on yet another day of cricket in the Border Gavaskar Trophy. Mohammed Siraj overturned his first-innings wastefulness by finding his rhythm quickly and keeping it up to snare three wickets. For Australia, Marnus Labuschagne rode his massive share of luck to score his second fifty of the Test to keep his team afloat on a see-saw day of cricket. Beyond the impact of this trio, Australia pushed their lead to 333 through a stubborn final-wicket stand between Nathan Lyon (41* off 54) and Scott Boland (10* off 65).

India’s reliance on Bumrah has stood out in this Test – in the first innings, he bowled 28.4 overs of 122.4 – only thrice before had he bowled more in a single innings in Tests. In the second, he shouldered a bigger share – sending down 24 off 82 overs so far. In these 24 overs, he picked up four wickets to rattle Australia’s cage after India conceded a 105-run first-innings lead.

He gave Day 4 a blockbuster start, taking out his first-innings nemesis Sam Konstas and celebrating like the 19-year-old did with the crowd on the previous day. He and Akash Deep then endured a session where they rued their luck as Usman Khawaja and Labuschagne survived myriad plays and misses, and kept getting squared up. India were top-class with the new ball without corresponding results to show for – they induced 41.6% false shots in the first 10 overs but only picked one wicket in this period.

Siraj then bowled like he had something to prove after his wayward first innings efforts. He knocked back Khawaja’s stumps to put the opener out of his misery. India then hastened their ascent in the game in the post-Lunch session as Bumrah and Siraj combined to pick four wickets in the space of 22 balls.

The procession started with Steve Smith nicking a full and widish delivery from Siraj behind before Travis Head suffered a rare double failure against India – chipping a ball from Bumrah to Nitish Reddy at mid-wicket. This was Bumrah’s milestone 200th scalp in the format. The ace pacer got an out-of-sorts Mitchell Marsh to nick one behind soon and then breached the bat-pad gap of Alex Carey, to leave Australia down to 91 for 6.

Just when India were on the rise, Pat Cummins arrived to dim their enthusiasm by putting on a stand with Labuschagne, who made the most of his near-misses and two dropped catches – both by Yashasvi Jaiswal. They put on 57 vital runs to push Australia’s lead before Siraj and India found themselves on the right side of an ‘umpire’s call’ for an LBW appeal against Labuschagne. With Labuschagne dismissed, Rohit Sharma kept bringing Bumrah back for short spells to try and wrap up the lower order but that didn’t quite transpire as he would have liked.

Mitchell Starc fell to a sharp run out by Pant, and Cummins nicked Jadeja to Rohit at first slip to fall for 41 but the last-wicket alliance remained undefeated. From 173 for 9, Lyon and Boland frustrated India to push the lead comfortably past 300. Together, the duo has now batted for 25 overs combined across the two innings in this fixture. While India couldn’t end Australia’s innings by stumps, the hosts too chose not to do it themselves through a declaration as batting appeared to be getting easier on the surface.

Brief Scores:Australia 474 & 228/9 (Marnus Labuschagne 70; Jasprit Bumrah 4-56, Mohammed Siraj 3-66) lead India 369 (Nitish Reddy 114, Yashasvi Jaiswal 82, Washington Sundar 50; Scott Boland 3-57, Pat Cummins 3-89, Nathan Lyon 3-96) by 333 runs