Mitchell Starc wants to rattle Indians with reverse swing in Bangalore Test

Taking no credit away from Team India for their performances since the past year and a half, a wake up call was just around the corner having played a majority of their test matches in home conditions against inexperienced teams, in subcontinental conditions, like New Zealand, England and Bangladesh and just two away tours to weakened teams of Sri Lanka and West Indies since August of 2015.

O’Keefe and fellow spinner Nathan Lyon remained largely ineffective during the team’s 3-0 thrashing in Sri Lanka previous year and Smith was pleased to see the turnaround.

Perhaps the most honest moment in the expert commentary on the first Test between India and Australia came at the end of the second day’s play when the anchor asked the cricketing legends Shane Warne and Sunil Gavaskar to evaluate the captaincy of Steve Smith and Virat Kohli. It is the fifth-cheapest 12-wicket haul in Test cricket. India’s batsmen cracked against spin, something that they are considered experts.

I’m sure it will be a pretty dry wicket again so that’ll probably help reverse swing and we know we’ve got huge reverse swing when we’ve got it here in India. “It’s three important Test matches to go”.

This time, the strategy backfired spectacularly for India. “Steve O’Keefe was absolutely unbelievable and well supported by the other bowlers”. He’s a good enough player he’s shown that and I believe he’s a good enough captain to get his team back up and that’s why I can’t wait to see the second Test in Bangalore. They can take little else from this result, their first loss in a home Test since England prevailed in Kolkata in December 2012. “We needed this for us to get a reality check and understand what are the things we need to work on, especially at the worldwide level”.

“There are three ways to make a turner out of a true surface at short notice”. Australia are 143/4 at the end of Day 2 and lead by 298 runs with six wickets remaining.

Lyon then bowled Ravindra Jadeja (3) and also claimed Jayant Yadav (5) and Ishant Sharma (0). He has done something Steven Smith will count as one of his proudest achievements: score a second-innings hundred in India against R Ashwin, when playing for Assam against his former team Tamil Nadu at his former home ground in Chennai. Both openers used up DRS reviews in what seemed regulation lbw dismissals. In other words, Virat Kohli’s side was dismissed twice in a day with an hour left.

The right-hander, fresh from posting a double-ton in each of his past four series, shouldered arms to a straight ball from Steve O’Keefe on Saturday that hit the middle of off stump. Upon his return to the team, Shikhar Dhawan was just as brutal smashing 187 from 174 balls.

The odds were heavily stacked against a side that had lost their previous nine tests in Asia and suffered a 4-0 whitewash when they last toured India in 2013, but Smith and his men were in the mood to cause an upset. “But you need a bit of luck on a wicket like that”, Smith said.

It is his practical knowledge of India that has made him an asset for Australia.