AUS vs IND 2024/25, Australia vs India 5th Test, Day 1, Sydney Match Report, January 3-7, 2025
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AUS vs IND 2024/25, Australia vs India 5th Test, Day 1, Sydney Match Report, January 3-7, 2025

Posted on by Amelia Pressman

Australia 9 for 1 (Bumrah 1-7) Trail India185 (Pant 40, Boland 4-31, Starc 3-49, Cummins 2-37) for 176 runs

Ahead of the Sydney Test, there was chaos off the field in India. Their on-field batting performance on the opening day in Sydney was equally chaotic after Rohit Sharma dropped himself in a move almost unprecedented in Indian cricket and Jasprit Bumrah took over as captain. After Bumrah opted to bat, India struggled against Australia’s relentless bowling and were eventually dismissed for 185 just before the end of the game.

Bumrah provided the final twist when he got rid of Usman Khawaja on the last ball of the day and Australia went to the stumps at 9 for 1.

Scott Boland led the way for Australia, posting stunning figures of 20-8-31-4. His metronomic accuracy and his command of length, with both the new and old ball, were too much for India’s batters. He rarely threw a bad ball and repeatedly produced sharp seam movements on the lush green Sydney pitch, which also offered an uneven bounce.

Mitchell Starc had gone wide in the first over looking for momentum, while Pat Cummins made a mistake on the shorter side with the new ball. However, Boland found the perfect length in his first pass and never deviated from it. He struck with his fourth ball when he placed one over a good length and managed to fire the ball away for Yashasvi Jaiswal to scoop at third slip to make it 10 for debutant Beau Webster.

By this point, KL Rahul had already been dismissed for 4 after chipping a leg-stump half-volley from Starc straight to Sam Konstas at square leg in the fifth over. Shubman Gill, who had replaced Rohit in India’s XI, started well but his innings was cut short after 20 when he advanced to Nathan Lyon only to offer a catch which, as it turned out, was the last ball before lunch. Gill has reached 20 three times in four innings on this tour but has not broken 31.

Virat Kohli could have been out on the first ball but he barely survived. Boland sent Kohli with an outside edge to second slip, where Steven Smith dived deep to his right and appeared to grab the ball close to the ground before somehow lifting it into the gully where Marnus Labuschagne completed the catch. After much back and forth, Joel Wilson, the TV referee, concluded that the ball had touched the ground before Smith threw it to Labuschagne.

Kohli then missed the next ball and 16 more balls before Boland got him to steal another and Webster saved that chance with his bucket hands at third slip. Kohli was sent off seven times in this Border-Gavaskar series and all his dismissals followed a pattern: he got behind the keeper or the barrier. It was also the fourth time in six Test innings that Boland defeated Kohli.

Kohli had gone to great lengths to avoid this pattern – abandoning his open stance in favor of a more lateral stance – but it proved inevitable as he fell on 17 off 69 balls.

Rishabh Pant and Ravindra Jadeja briefly repaired the innings with a 48-run partnership for the fifth wicket in 25 overs before Boland did damage to India again, this time with a double strike. First he got Pant to make a move to middle and the next ball Nitish Kumar Reddy, India’s MCG Test hero, was caught at second slip for a duck. Boland was denied a hat-trick but remained a threat, even ripping the old ball off the seam over and around the stumps.
Pant had knocked unusually. After being caught on the edge of the pitch in both innings at the MCG – his failed scoop in the first innings sparking particularly harsh criticism – he sat back and relied more on his defensive technique. However, in a rare display of aggression, he stepped towards Webster and sent him flying across the screen for six seconds. It was only India’s sixth boundary in 46 overs.
The depth and skill of the Australian attack meant the Indian batsmen had no breathing room. Webster, the all-rounder who switched from offspin to medium pace during Covid-19, put in a decent performance with figures of 13-4-29-0 and his slip-catching was even more memorable.

Starc and Cummins then looked after India’s underclass. Despite struggling with back problems, Starc picked up the pace to 90 mph and kept India’s batters off balance, using the uneven bounce to his advantage. He first hit Pant on the bicep, leaving a bruise, before hitting him on his helmet. During his arduous stay, Pant suffered several blows to his body.

Ravindra Jadeja’s vigil (26 off 95 balls) ended when Starc caught him with his left hand. Cummins then dismissed India for 185.

Bumrah had a lot of fun with the bat and managed to hit 22 off 17 balls. He had more fun with the ball when he struck out with the last ball of the day. He celebrated wildly by turning around and shouting at Konstas, the non-striker who had had a heated exchange with him shortly before Khawaja’s dismissal. The on-field referee had to intervene to defuse the tension.

Bumrah and Konstas promise more entertainment on day two at the SCG.

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