Nathan Lyon bags eight as India crumbles for 189

Abhinav Mukund replaces injured Murali Vijay and an extra batsman is induced in Karun Nair for Jayant Yadav.

He didn’t have a spin partner in Chennai for the first Test of that series with Australia opting for the medium pace of Moises Henriques as they wanted to boost the batting line up. Mukund was probably reeling from the Pune defeat. He was replaced by left-handed Abhinav Mukund, who played the last of his five tests nearly six years ago against England at Nottingham. Ajinkya Rahane, arguably the best Indian close-in fielder, is sometimes stationed at first slip. “It’s human nature that you get mentally relaxed a bit after going unbeaten for 19 matches, though the body would continue to work well cent per cent”, he said.

In the 71.2 overs Australia bowled, they didn’t send down one ball that could be described as short and wide. But it was an innings that was not comforting to watch. “The guys are going to come out with much more intent in this game”. He needs eight more wickets to overtake Richie Benaud’s career haul of 248 wickets. To drive or go over the top wasn’t really easy.

Rahul did his best to save India the blushes but fell short by 10 runs of what would have been a well-deserved century. If Steve O’Keefe was the star in Pune, Lyon bowled with a plan.

O’Keefe, brought on by Steven Smith in the eighth over, attacked the stumps, kept the ball at a good length and back of a good length and kept bringing the batsmen forward, searching for the ball, which did create a few ooh and aah moments.

He also obtained great variety in the amount of spin he was extracting. And that was the key to Lyon’s success. The world’s best batsman is not supposed to make such mistakes but his three dismissals in the series till now have been painful to watch. Pujara couldn’t thrive as well and Virat Kohli also got dismissed for 12 as he was a victim of another error of judgement. An over before that Ashwin and Matt Renshaw bumped into each other while the bowler was trying to save a single.

There was nothing extraordinary about the way Lyon got his wickets. Kohli stared at Renshaw, signalling the opener to not do it again. Not that there is a flaw in Kohli technique, far from it as the Indian skipper has rogered most of the bowlers in the home season.

Of course, there are a hundred mistakes to be pondered upon from Pune – poor shot selection in both innings, spinners bowling improper length, and a plethora of dropped catches, just to get started. And just like in Pune, this time too, he made a huge error in judgement and chose to leave the ball too early.