New Delhi. Left-arm spinner Ravindra Jadeja took a career-best 7/42 as India beat Australia by six wickets in the second Test of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy to take an unassailable 2-0 lead in the four-match series here on Sunday. Took. With this victory, India almost confirmed the ticket to the World Test Championship and also acquired the right to retain the Border-Gavaskar Trophy. As per the rules, the Border-Gavaskar Trophy is awarded to the team that won the previous series after the series is drawn. Australia lost their remaining nine wickets by adding just 52 more runs in the second innings on Sunday. This fate of Australia’s batsmen was also due to Jadeja’s excellent bowling as well as poor shot selection.
Jadeja, who took 10 wickets in the match, got good support in the second innings from the experienced Ravichandran Ashwin (3 for 59) in front of these two spinners, only two Australian batsmen could score runs in double figures. Chasing the target, Lokesh Rahul (one run), running in poor rhythm, was unlucky. His flick shot off Nathan Lyon hit the leg fielder’s pads and went into the wicketkeeper’s gloves. Apart from him, the rest of the batsmen showed Australia how to bat against spin. The team achieved the target in 26.4 overs with the loss of four wickets. Cheteshwar Pujara, playing his 100th Test, gave the team victory by hitting a four. He remained unbeaten on 31 runs.
Wicketkeeper Kona Bharat scored 23 not out while Virat Kohli looked at ease during his 20-run innings. For the Indian team, this is the 100th win against Australia across all formats. The third Test match of the series will be played in Indore from March 1. Starting the day at 61 for one, at least five Australian batsmen lost wickets against Jadeja in poor slog sweeps. Some batsmen attempted the reverse sweep on deliveries bowled on the off-middle or leg-middle line, and were bowled or lbw as the ball did not get much bounce. Saturday’s unbeaten batsmen Travis Head (43) and Marnus Labuschagne (35) could only face the Indian spinners to some extent. But in the very first over of the day’s session, wicketkeeper Bharat took a head catch off off-spinner Ashwin and after that the match changed completely. Smith had already made up his mind to sweep against Ashwin but the ball stayed down and hit his pads. Smith took DRS (Review against on-field umpire’s decision) against the on-field umpire’s decision but it did not help him.
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Labushen, who has been batting brilliantly so far, got caught on Jadeja’s fast ball. He tried to play this ball by going on the backfoot but the ball came out from under the bat and hit the stump. Australia then lost the wickets of Matt Renshaw (two), Peter Handscomb (0) and captain Pat Cummins (0) without adding any runs to the score. With this, the team’s score went from 95 runs for three wickets to 95 runs for seven wickets. Renshaw was included in the team for this match after David Warner was injured but he lacked the technique to play spin. Alex Carey (eight runs) and Lyon (seven) then put on a 15-run stand but Jadeja bowled both of them and Matthew Kuhnemann in the space of three runs to pave the way for India’s victory.
Chasing the target, Rohit Sharma took an aggressive approach and played an innings of 31 runs in 20 balls before being run out due to a mistake with Pujara. After this, Virat Kohli, who came to the crease, made another record in his name. He became the second Indian player after Sachin Tendulkar (34357 runs) to complete 25,000 runs in international cricket. Apart from Kohli and Sachin, Kumar Sangakkara (28016), Ricky Ponting (27483), Mahela Jayawardene (25957) and Jacques Kallis (25534) have touched this milestone. Kohli, however, achieved this record in the shortest number of innings. He achieved this figure in his 549th international innings. Earlier this record was in the name of Tendulkar who completed 25,000 runs in 577 innings.
