Australian captain Steve Smith hit his 20th century but Kuldeep Yadav took four wickets as Australia were bowled out for 300 runs in their first innings on the first day of the fourth Test at the HPCA Stadium in Dharamsala on Saturday.
An emotional moment for @imkuldeep18 as he gets his first Test wicket #INDvAUS pic.twitter.com/jeizXiR8OW
— BCCI (@BCCI) March 25, 2017
At stumps, India were yet to get off the mark in their first innings after batting for one over.
The 22-year-old Kuldeep, who replaced injured skipper Viart Kohli, returned figures of four for 68 in 23 overs after Australia decided to bat and made a resounding start.
India’s first ever left-arm wrist spinner in Test cricket, Kuldeep bamboozled Australian batsmen in a terrific post-lunch spell, accounting for David Warner (56), Peter Handscomb (8) and Glenn Maxwell (8).
This was after the visitors were on a roll during the opening session, courtesy skipper’s Smith quality knock of 111. Scoring his third century of the series, Smith along with Warner added 134 runs for the second wicket before Kuldeep weaved his spin magic.
Keeper-batsman Matthew Wade’s (57) rear guard effort stemmed the rot after the middle-order collapse with Australia managing to reach 300-run mark.
Umesh Yadav (2/69 in 15 overs) once again played his part to perfection while Ravichandran Ashwin (1/54 in 23 overs) got the all-important wicket of Smith, who edged one to stand-in captain Ajinkya Rahane at slip at stroke of tea. Ravindra Jadeja and Bhuvneshwar Kumar also had a wicket apiece.
But it was the Kanpur lad, who turned things around after a gloomy first session. In fact the second session saw Australia lose five wickets for 71 runs with home team taking control of the proceedings.
It was surprise element in Kuldeep’s bowling that caught the Australian team on wrong foot.
Credit should be given to Rahane, who showed a lot of faith in the youngster by giving him an extended spell.
All three batsmen dismissed during the post-lunch session were guilty of not reading Kuldeep from his hand, trying to play him off the pitch.
