Australia spearhead Pat Cummins was pleasantly surprised by their fiery, flawless display of pace bowling which consigned India to a record low total in the opening day-night Test on Saturday. Cummins’ double strikes on the third day unhinged Virat Kohli’s India who were eventually shot out for 36, their lowest innings score in 88 years of test cricket."We thought if we could get them out for 200 today, have a bit of a bat, we’d stay in the game," Cummins told Channel 7 after claiming 4-21 to go with his three first innings wickets. "But for that to happen in the first hour, amazing. It was just one of those days where everything came off, everything we tried worked," said the top ranked test bowler.
Pat Cummins felt they bowled well in the first innings too but were richly rewarded for tweaking their length on Saturday. "We found in the first innings there was actually a lot of bounce, so to hit the stumps it almost felt like it had to be a half volley. But when we got into our work we were able to get up there a bit fuller, make the batters make decisions, make it harder to leave the ball and fortunately it all came off today."
The 27-year-old likened his team`s bowling performance to last year’s Headingley Test when they skittled out England for 67 in the first innings. "Last year in Headingley first innings, we had a similar day out. Today and then are by far the best I’ve seen us bowl." Josh Hazlewood was Australia’s wrecker-in-chief against India at the Adelaide Oval, claiming 5-8, while Mitchell Starc could not add to his four first innings wickets. "At one stage he told Starcy, ‘I’m going to try and keep my wickets above my runs here’, so he was cheeky there towards the end," Cummins said of Hazlewood.
If Pat Cummins had decimated the Indian top order with the crucial wicket of Virat Kohli, then it was Josh Hazlewood who ran through the Indian batting and finished with 5/8, the most economical five-wicket haul after 73 years. After the end of the match, Josh Hazlewood had gone past 200 wickets and he said it was a dream.
“Still pinching myself (about how quickly the wickets fell). Little bit (smiles, asked if he emulated Glenn McGrath style of bowling today). I try to do that every time I bowl to be honest. We bowled a little bit fuller and straighter and there you go... all out for 36, good result. Ready to go from ball one makes a lot of difference, can go wrong if you take two three balls to warm up. That one boundary early on for the batsman can make a difference. The wicket quickened up definitely. We bowled a touch fuller, gave the ball air to swing and got the results. Hope for a bit more grass on (for the rest of the series). We have got a blueprint from this game as to how we should go about it. Red ball is another change. We ticked a lot of boxes this game. The difference at certain times of the day with the pink ball. Tough to bat in the night, during the day it's kind of soft for the bowlers. but this pitch had a bit more grass than the previous series. So we are still learning and evolving with the pink ball,” Josh Hazlewood said.