Long before umpires Richard Kettleborough and Richard Illingworth officially called off play at 4:10 pm local time, it was obvious that the opening day of the third Test on Saturday would see no more than 80 balls of action. They were 80 rather unremarkable balls after Rohit Sharma opted to field, his decision influenced as much by the live grass on the surface as the overhead conditions that had rain written all over them.
In whatever little play was possible, Usman Khawaja and Nathan McSweeney weathered the storm reasonably comfortably. There was the occasional play-and-miss, but no major alarms; no edges fell short of the slip cordon, there were no oohs and aahs on the odd instance when the ball struck the pads because it was always going to go above the height of the stumps. Australia had ground their way to 28 without loss in the 13.2 overs possible, clearly the happier of the sides even though this moving Test hasn’t really made any progress worth the name.
The forecast isn’t very encouraging for the rest of the Test; the start of play has been advanced to 9:50 am from Sunday onwards in a bid to make up for lost time and sneak in 98 overs on each of the last four days.
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The delay in the official announcement of the abandonment had something to do with the fact that had another 10 legal deliveries been bowled, it would have prevented a ticket refund because the minimum requirement of 15 overs would have been met. The return of their money will only be a minor consolation to the 30,000-plus fans who thronged the Gabba, hoping for more of the fascinating action that has studded this series so far.
India made two changes to the side that was well beaten in Adelaide. Expectedly, Akash Deep came in for Harshit Rana, who had a disappointing pink ball debut, while left-arm spinner Ravindra Jadeja replaced offie R Ashwin. Deep was clearly the best of the Indian bowlers after coming on the first change, bowling a fuller length and getting more zip off the surface compared to Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammed Siraj.
Like they had in Adelaide on the first evening, the two new-ball bowlers didn’t make the openers play enough. At the first stoppage for rain, 25 minutes after the start, only one of the 33 deliveries till then would have hit the stumps, only two were fuller than the five-metre length.
India did come up with better plans after the first interruption which lasted a half-hour, putting a brake on the scoring for the next 35 minutes before the tropical rain returned with a vengeance, not to let up at all for the next three and a half hours, at which point the worst kept secret of the day — the abandonment — was revealed to the few hundreds who had braved the precipitation and stayed on at the ground.
Brief scores
Australia 28-0 (U Khawaja 19*, N McSweeney 4*) v India
