(Cricket news) India’s poor performance at the World Test Championship continued on day 2. Australia began the day at 327/5 with Travis Head and Steve Smith at the crease. Smith was unbeaten on 95 and Mohammed Siraj gave him two freebies to complete a memorable century.

India then fought back as Siraj dismissed Head while Shami got rid of Cameron Green. Steve Smith followed as he was dismissed by Shardul Thakur. Alex Carey scored 48 important runs to take Australia to a formidable total of 469. India fought back well in the morning session but Australia’s tail still got a few too many runs.

India started their innings in an aggressive manner as both Shubman Gill and Rohit Sharma looked to score runs. However that didn’t go on for too long as Pat Cummins trapped Rohit Sharma plumb in front. Things got worse for India as Shubman Gill and Cheteshwar Pujara got out in similar fashion to Scott Bolland and Cameron Green respectively. Both didn’t offer a shot to an in-swinging delivery and were clean-bowled in a disappointing fashion. Virat Kohli also couldn’t stay for long as edged to a jaffa from Mitchell Starc which produced excessive bounce out of nowhere. 

Ajinkya Rahane and Ravindra Jadeja steadied the ship as they put together a 71 run partnership. Jadeja after a couple of nervy moments settled down and played a fighting knock. Disaster struck for India again in the form of Nathan Lyon as he dismissed Jadeja in just his 2nd over.

Ajinkya Rahane was looking really good but he got hit on his finger after which he was struggling a little. He is still unbeaten on 29 off 71 balls while KS Bharat is at the other end on 5. The pair will have to pull off something really special to get India back into the game. Their first target would be to avoid the follow-on for which India need 119 more runs.

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