Melbourne: Debutant Mayank Agarwal (76, 161b, 8×4, 1×6) provided the base with a confident half century before Virat Kohli (47 batting, 107b, 6×4) and Cheteshwar Pujara (68 batting, 200b, 6×4) steered India to a solid 215 for two on day one of the third Test against Australia, here Wednesday.
Agarwal, entered into the squad following failure of KL Rahul and Murali Vijay, responded with a wonderful knock, sorting out India’s opening woes to some extent.
The conditions, though, were completely different from what Rahul and Vijay had countered in bowler-friendly Adelaide and Perth. The MCG pitch turned out to be docile, ideal for someone making his Test debut as the Australian pacers had to bend their back to get the Kookaburra ball to rise sharply.
Make-shift opener Hanuma Vihari (8, 66b) did not make many runs in his 40-run stand with Mayank but they batted out 18.5 overs, India’s longest opening stand in terms of balls faced in Test cricket across Australia, New Zealand, England and South Africa since December 2010. Virender Sehwag and Gautam Gambhir had batted out 29.3 overs against the Proteas at Centurion in that year.
The combination of Mayank and Vihari was India’s sixth opening pairing in 2018, and fifth in 11 overseas Tests this year. Agarwal missed out on scoring a hundred on Test debut but grabbed the opportunity with both hands.
During his knock, he became only the second Indian to make a 50-plus score on debut on Australian soil after Dattu Phadkar (51) at SCG in December, 1947. Overall, he became the seventh Indian batsman to score a half century on Test debut.
The Karnataka lad fell at stroke of tea, caught down the leg side to be the second victim of paceman Pat Cummins (2/40), the only successful bowler for the hosts on the day.
Skipper Kohli and Pujara then took control over the proceedings denying the hosts any more success in the final session. However, Kohli survived a hostile Mitchell Starc over towards the end to stay unbeaten. Tim Paine grassed a caught behind chance when Kohli chased one from Starc in that over. Kohli and Pujara have stitched together a 92-run stand for the third wicket.
The Indian captain had walked out to bat to a mixture of cheers and boos, but soon impressed the capacity crowd at the MCG with his repertoire of strokes. He sped off the blocks and at one stage was scoring at strike-rate 70-plus before Australia reined things in with some tight bowling.
It soon reflected in India’s overall run-rate as well which didn’t cross 2.5 per over all day. At the other end, Pujara continued in his usual manner and brought up his 21st Test half century off 152 balls.
Brief scores: India 215/2 (Mayank Agarwal 76, Cheteshwar Pujara 68 batting; Pat Cummins 2/40) vs Australia. Match to continue.