Team India is facing Australia in the first test of the four-match test series for the Border-Gavaskar Trophy at Vidarbha Cricket Association Stadium in Nagpur.
While Indian spinners were amongst all the headlines ahead of the first test, it was Indian pacers who gave them a brilliant start as they got rid of Aussie openers in quick succession.
Mohammed Shami produces peach of a delivery to get rid of David Warner
Nagpur’s pitch was in all sorts of news headlines as it was expected to produce turn right from the word go. Contrary to expectations, India’s pace duo of Mohammed Siraj and Mohammed Shami dismissed David Warner and Usman Khawaja with the new ball.
Australia’s destructive opener David Warner, who has a poor record against Indian spinners was served a peach of a delivery by Mohammed Shami as he departed after scoring just 1 run. On the other hand Siraj had earlier dismissed Usman Khawaja and the Aussie side was placed at 2/2 just within 15 minutes of play.
Mohammed Shami straight away decided to use the round the wicket angle against David Warner and the trap worked as expected by him. Shami bowled a length delivery around the fourth stump channel and the delivery sharply nipped back in towards the off stump.
David Warner didn’t use his feet at all and was stuck on the crease. The ball brushed through his back pad and dislodged his off stump and Warner took the long way back to the pavilion.
It’s worth noting that David Warner usually faces difficulties against the around the wicket angle and it must have been well thought of by Mohammed Shami and the team management to use the same angle to dismiss the destructive Aussie batter.
After losing both the openers in quick succession the Australian team looked in a spot of bother as they still had to face the spin trio of Ashwin, Jadeja and Axar Patel. However, Steve Smith and Marnus Labuschagne played really well throughout the first session and made sure that the Aussie side didn’t lose any more wickets before lunch as they took the score to 76-2.
