VIDEO: Mohammed Shami’s Brutal Ball To Uproot Marnus Labuschagne’s Stumps: It was an intensely contested first session of the Ahmedabad Test, the 4th Test of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy 2023. At Lunch, Australia are 75/2, having lost opener Travis Head to R Ashwin and number 3 Marnus Labuschagne to Mohammed Shami.
Steve Smith, who continues to lead Australia in the absence of regular captain Pat Cummins, won the toss on what he labelled as a “good pitch” and had said was the best of the surfaces in this series to bat on, and elected to bat first
India made only one change from their loss in the Indore Test: Mohammed Shami coming in for Mohammed Siraj. However, Shami wasn’t in his best rhythm with the ball; he was erratic with his lines and strayed down on both sides to give wides and plenty of byes.
The Australian openers Travis Head and Usman Khawaja looked good for the first hour. The first 15 overs yielded 61 runs for Australia and no wicket for India, before the hosts stormed back in the second session. First, Ashwin dismissed Head, caught by Jadeja after a mistimed hit toward mid-on.
A few overs of Ashwin-Jadeja after, Rohit Sharma pressed on the paddle and brought back Mohammed Shami, who struck immediately in his second spell with the big wicket of Marnus Labuschagne.
It was a back-of-length delivery from Shami that nipped back into Marnus, who was shaping up to play a cut shot. However, the ball seamed in a little and stayed low a little, taking the inside edge of Labuschagne’s bat and rattling the stumps with the leg stump even coming out of the ground.
Mohammed Shami was pumped up with Marnus’ wicket; so were the Indian players and the huge crowd that had assembled at the Narendra Modi stadium.
Watch: Mohammed Shami castled Marnus Labuschagne:
𝐓.𝐈.𝐌.𝐁.𝐄.𝐑 🔥@MdShami11 sends back Labuschagne to scalp the second wicket for #TeamIndia 👌
Follow the match ▶️ https://t.co/8DPghkx0DE#INDvAUS | @mastercardindia pic.twitter.com/LT3ao2kFBk
— BCCI (@BCCI) March 9, 2023
Meanwhile, this is a must-win game for India for them to qualify for the WTC final. India were leading the series 2-0 after victories in Nagpur and Delhi before the visitors bounced back to claim a 9-wicket victory in Indore.
Steve Smith won the toss in Ahmedabad and elected to bat first.
Teams:
India (Playing XI): Rohit Sharma(c), Shubman Gill, Cheteshwar Pujara, Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, Srikar Bharat(w), Ravindra Jadeja, Axar Patel, Ravichandran Ashwin, Mohammed Shami, Umesh Yadav
Australia (Playing XI): Travis Head, Usman Khawaja, Marnus Labuschagne, Steven Smith(c), Peter Handscomb, Cameron Green, Alex Carey(w), Mitchell Starc, Todd Murphy, Matthew Kuhnemann, Nathan Lyon
