The day1 of the first Test of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy was dominated by India. After losing the toss, Rohit and co. bowled well to bundle up visitors in two sessions. The spin duo of Ravindra Jadeja and Ravichandran Ashwin bowled Australia for 177 runs in 63.5 overs. Jadeja took his 11th five-wicket haul while Ashwin clinched three wickets.
In response, India scored 77 runs in 24 overs by losing KL Rahul at stumps on day 1. Indian captain, Rohit Sharma slammed a brilliant half-century while Rahul scored 20 runs before getting out to debutant Todd Murphy. Rohit neutralized the threats of Pat Cummins and Nathan Lyon with aggressive stroke play. He hammered three boundaries in the very first over of the innings off Cummins.
Former Australia captain Mark Waugh praised the Indian skipper for his stroke play and compared his batting style with ex-India captain Virat Kohli. Former Australia opener praised Rohit for his strokeplay and capacity to win games for his team. He called Rohit the ‘key’ to the Indian batting.
“Rohit Sharma is the key to the Indian batting. He is a very good player of spin. He has scored so quickly, that’s the thing,” Waugh said on Star Sports after stumps on Day-1.
Waugh further compared his batting style with former India captain Virat Kohli. According to Waugh, Kohli likes to ‘dig in’ and bat long while Rohit attacks bowlers and takes the game away from the opposition quickly.
“You look at the rest of Indian players, I think Kohli sort of digs in and takes his time but Sharma is one guy who can take the game away from Australia quite quickly. He looked like a different player who was batting on a different surface. It was a classy inning,” Waugh said.
India dominates Australia on Day-1
Talking about the game, India dominated the visitors on the first day of the match. Indian bowlers led by all-rounder Ravindra Jadeja restricted Australia to 177 runs. Marnus Labuschange was the highest run-getter for the visitors. He scored 49 runs off 123 balls, including 8 fours. He, along with Steven Smith, added 82 runs for the 3rd wicket before being stumped by KS Bharat.
