New Delhi: Nathan Lyon bowled a dream spell to take five wickets that brought Australia back into the game after Murali Vijay and Cheteshwar Pujara had given India a brilliant start on the second day of the fourth and final Test being played at Feroz Shah Kotla ground here on Saturday. India were 268 for 8 at stumps on day two with a lead of four runs and two wickets in hand.
Vijay and Pujara gave India a brilliant on a wicket which had odd turn and bounce. Pujara in particular was a delight to watch as he decimated James Pattinson and Peter Siddle to both sides of the field and at one point of a time had a strike rate of over 100. He reached the 50-run mark in the 24th over of the innings.
The duo did their best by picking up loose balls against Pattinson and Siddle and added 108 runs for the opening stand. This forced the Australian skipper Shane Watson to come up with a bowling change and Mitchell Johnson and Nathan Lyon responded their skipper well to stopping the run-flow. Soon Lyon bamboozled Pujara to uproot his stumps on 52.
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Innings Break: Australia - 262/10 in 112.1 overs (NM Lyon 8)
Lunch: India - 59/0 in 14.0 overs (M Vijay 23, CA Pujara 28)
Tea: India - 135/2 in 38.0 overs (M Vijay 54, SR Tendulkar 12)
Stumps: India-266 /8 in 68.1overs (B. Kumar 10*)
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That was just the beginning as Lyon struck again when he trapped Kohli in front of the off and middle stump with India adding just six runs to the total. This brought Sachin Tendulkar to the crease, who was welcomed by Pattinson with back to back bouncers. Meanwhile, Vijay passed another 50 run mark when he worked away the short of a length ball for single.
Murli Vijay (57) got out to Siddle as the ball kissed his gloves after taking an awkward bounce from the crack on the wicket. Departure of Vijay brought Ajinkya Rahane into the crease and the debutant was looking uncomfortable from the very beginning against the swinging deliveries and bouncers from Siddle. Rahane was struggling to find his feet against the duo of Siddle and Lyon and his innings didn’t last long. He was undone by Lyon and gave a catch to Steven Smith off his delivery.
Mahendra Singh Dhoni, who joined Tendulkar, started off with the boundary and looked to unsettle Lyon with his aggressive stroke play. On the other hand, Tendulkar was looking comfortable against Siddle but his struggle continued against Lyon. Lyon finally got the much-deserving wicket of the Master when he trapped him in front of the middle stump and ended his innings on 32 runs. It was Lyon’s fourth wicket of the match.
Ravindra Jadeja, who joined his skipper, added 30 runs with Dhoni to take India’s total past 200. But soon Dhoni mis-timed Pattinson to hand over a simple catch to Shane Watson at mid-wicket. Ravichandran Ashwin took on to the crease and tried to resurrect the Indian innings with Jadeja and managed to add 44 runs before Glenn Maxwell struck in his first over to trap Jadeja in front of the wicket.
However, Jadeja’s cameo made sure that India crossed the 250 mark and helped the hosts inch closer to Australia’s first innings total. Later Ashwin and Bhuvneshwar Kumar took India’s total to 266 at the end of the day’s play.
Earlier, Australia could add just 31 runs to their overnight total. Siddle scored his well deserving maiden test fifty and added 54 runs for the ninth wicket before Ravichandran Ashwin bowled him with his usual outside off-stump length ball which didn’t turn much as expected.
Later, Pragyan Ojha picked up his 100th wicket of his career by sending Pattinson back to pavilion and wrapping up the Australian team for 262.