Sharma and Co hit self destruct button to lose by 184 runs in record MCG Test
MELBOURNE: Once again, it all began with a Rishabh Pant brainfade. From 33/3 on the brink of lunch while chasing 340, India had batted through a session without losing a wicket. Yashasvi Jaiswal looked better than he did in Perth, with Pant giving him company.
When the duo walked out on the field at 3.30 PM in front of an all-time record attendance at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, it was cinema. Test cricket seemed like it was here to stay. The fading lights and the seniors had fallen - as they had been through the series - and it was on the next generation to get India through the day.
Jaiswal was at the forefront of it, while Pant tried to restrain himself from doing anything reckless. Only two days ago, Pant had scooped his way back to the pavilion, leading Sunil Gavaskar to lose his cool on air. “Stupid, stupid, stupid,” Gavaskar yelled on air while being on ABC radio commentary.
The last thing Pant would want is to frustrate the legend, whose name is on the trophy India are trying to retain, once again. That is also the last thing India would want. For the ones to follow were Ravindra Jadeja, Washington Sundar, and Nitish K Reddy.
Make no mistake, they are all capable batters, but it was the kind of pitch where getting your eye in is more difficult than building on it. It seemed like Pant was well aware of it.
The left-hander had played more than 100 balls, gotten hit on the arm, while hitting just two fours until that point despite getting through Travis Head and Marnus Labuschagne.
However, it was only a matter of time. On the fourth ball of the 59th over, Pant tried to dispatch a long hop from Head into the stands but instead ended up skiing it to Mitch Marsh at long-on. An unnecessary dismissal at a time when India needed him to stay in the middle. They had seven wickets, including three tailenders. They had 34 overs left to face and 219 runs to chase.
At that point, not one person at the venue was thinking of an Indian win. It was long gone when they were reduced to 33/3, with a struggling Sharma and Kohli falling - one tried and faltered, while the latter kind of threw it away.
As the keeper-batter walked back, he knew what he had done. He knew no matter where Gavaskar was watching from, he would have lost his cool once again. Pant, in frustration, threw his glove up but failed to catch it. He stood in the middle of nowhere, all by himself, while the MCG roared and celebrated with the Australian team. He bent down, picked it up, and walked back again.
As feared, it opened the floodgates. Ravindra Jadeja lasted only six balls before fending one behind the stumps off Scott Boland. Nitish K Reddy, the centurion from the first innings, too was outdone in six balls, this time by Nathan Lyon. All of a sudden, India were staring at defeat with one recognised batting pair left in Washington and Jaiswal.
The Tamil Nadu all-rounder had shown enough restraint in the first innings to trust his defence, but it all depended on how Jaiswal, who was nearing a three-figure mark, would show patience. To their credit, they did for about 35 minutes. That is when Jaiswal decided to awkwardly pull at Cummins. He was not given out, but the third umpire, in the end, decided there was enough visual evidence to overturn the decision despite snicko not showing any spike.
Drama unfolded at the MCG as 73,362 fans - a total of 373,534 attended across days to break an 87-year-old record for the biggest crowd for a Test at the MCG and in Australia - started chanting ‘cheater, cheater’. Jaiswal was back in the pavilion for 84, and India were 140/7.
While describing his decision, third umpire Sharfuddoula Ibne Shahid Saikat said that he had visual evidence of the ball touching the gloves and the deflection thereafter suggested the same.
Former umpire Simon Taufel, speaking on Channel 7, explained that there is a hierarchy of redundancy when making a decision for the umpires. “When the third umpire sees a clear deflection off the bat, there really is no need to go any further and use any other forms of technology to prove the case,” he said.
Even as everyone tried to make sense of the technicalities and rationalise what seemed like an obviously legitimate dismissal, emotions were running high in the middle. It only went up a notch when another dismissal - Akash Deep’s - sparked a DRS debate. This time he was caught off the pad at short-leg. The spike, although appearing late, and the red mark on the inside edge of the bat cleared it all.
From thereon, it was just a matter of time. Boland removed Bumrah, and Lyon trapped Mohammed Siraj. When the finger went up for one final time, the Australians engulfed Lyon as they beat India by 184 runs - for the first time since 2011 at the MCG - and took a 2-1 lead. A fitting end, perhaps, with the team that played better cricket over the course of five days going away with a win of epic proportions in front of a historic crowd.