Raincheck: India’s collapse means Australia can still win Gabba Test

Brisbane: “We were completely and utterly dominant throughout the hours of play we had.”

With two days to go in tropical Brisbane, Australia could be forgiven for reprising the words of Ben Stokes after the Old Trafford Ashes Test last year, when England made all the running but were beaten more by rain than by Australia.

Australia’s Mitch Marsh enjoys his catch to dismiss India’s Shubman Gill.Credit: AP

Given that days one and three have had a combined 46 overs, it says a lot about how badly India have played this Test match that Australia are still a genuine chance to force victory and grab a 2-1 series lead ahead of Melbourne and Sydney.

“Yeah I try not to think about that one too much, although it was a good day that last day,” Mitch Marsh quipped of Manchester, when the rain guaranteed Australia would retain the urn. “Let’s hope there’s no repeat of that.

“When you get sent in and make 450 it is always positive, and then you earn the right to attack, especially early with the ball. Now it’s about how do we try to take 20 wickets, we’ve got six more to get and then we just assess from there.”

With the exception of a few overs on the second day when Jasprit Bumrah caused a couple of tremors in the Australian top order, there has only really been one team in it at the Gabba. That’s a similar tone to the way much of the Adelaide Test played out, only this time the ball is red rather than pink.

India’s top order, which had slogged through 117 overs after Rohit Sharma sent the Australians in due to the seductive look of the conditions on day one, fell into a succession of too easily laid traps – aided by the constant spectre of rain breaks.

Yashavsi Jaiswal’s languid flick to mid-wicket had the home side barely believing their luck after his big century in the second innings in Perth. Mitchell Starc has prospered against him by attacking the stumps early on.

Shubman Gill was too loose in driving at a wide ball from Starc that gave Marsh the opportunity to give his best impression of the injured Cameron Green with a flying gully catch.

And Virat Kohli’s exit, driving at a Josh Hazlewood tempter well wide of the off stump, added yet another example to the case file on how to bowl to India’s biggest name. Of the four wickets, only Rishabh Pant could escape major censure by the fact he was defeated by a perfect length ball from Pat Cummins in a resumption that lasted all of seven balls.

For India and Bumrah, the remainder of this game will be a matter of survival, much as it was for Australia at Old Trafford. They will need to find someone to make a century of the calibre produced by Marnus Labuschagne back then, and also to avoid in-fighting over the best way forward.

Tellingly, Bumrah’s rhetoric after play pivoted towards the fact this is a team in transition with many young players in its ranks. While pragmatic as ever, they were also the words of a team for whom Perth’s big win was almost a pleasant surprise.

“We don’t as a team point fingers at each other, and you don’t want to get into that mindset saying ‘you should do that’,” Bumrah said. “We are going through a transition, we have a lot of players coming here and it’s not the easiest place to play cricket.

“We are a new team, a lot of new players have come into the side so we have to be considerate and give the players a cushion that they will learn from experience. Last time as well we had a little more experienced side when we came here, but this will be the journey that every team will go through. All these experiences will help them. You keep learning and finding new ways.”

Bumrah also acknowledged that he and his teammates needed to find new and better ways to counteract Australian batting plans that involve getting past 30 to 40 overs of the innings with wickets intact, the better to unleash Travis Head.

“The Kookaburra ball once the seam goes down and it becomes soft, it becomes relatively easier to bat when the wicket is not offering a lot,” Bumrah said. “It is a great scenario for a team when you’ve got a decent opening partnership and when the ball is softer your second or third seamer is bowling, so you can take advantage.

“We’ve got Rishabh Pant who does that as well, but all those scenarios are very difficult for bowlers sometimes. You bowl a certain number of overs and the ball is not doing a lot and you can’t take an attacking option.

“So it’s a puzzle that you can solve sometimes, but sometimes if someone plays well you have to take note of it and say ‘well played’. But that’s a challenge we are trying to find different answers, we are trying to come up with different solutions. So hopefully in the final games we’ll have better answers.”

So far, under Rohit’s captaincy, the Indians have been bereft of those answers. All that spectators have been left with after three days at a soggy Gabba are new sets of questions: both about the touring team and the weather that might save them.

News, results and expert analysis from the weekend of sport sent every Monday. Sign up for our Sport newsletter.