India vs Australia 3rd Test: Poor shot selection puts Men in Blue on backfoot

Indian batters once against struggled against the Australian spinners as the hosts were placed at a precarious 79 for four in their second innings at tea on day two of the third Test here on ThursdayIndia still trail Australia by nine runs and will need to set at least a 150run target for the visitors for a fight India who have lost only two Tests at home in the last 10 years are staring at a rare loss in their own backyardThe hosts who collapsed to 109 on Wednesday bowled Australia out for 197 in the morning sessionShubman Gill 5 coming into the side in place of K L Rahul suffered his second failure of the game after getting beaten in the flight by Nathan Lyon He went for an ugly hoick but ended up getting castledLyon also got rid of India skipper Rohit Sharma 12 who was trapped in front after misjudging the length of the ballAlso Read Coach Vikram Rathour refuses to blame batsmen says none played rash shotsrsquoVirat Kohlis 13 shot selection too was questionable as he was adjudged LBW after attempting a pull off leftarm spinner Matthew Kuhnemann on a track offering spin and uneven bounceCheteshwar Pujara 36 batting off 76 by far looked the most solid of the Indian batters and used his feet brilliantlyRavindra Jadeja 7 falling lbw to Lyon at the stroke of tea made matters worse for the home team Lyon was all over the Indian lefthander in that over and ended up getting a DRS call in his favourFor India the only positive was Pujaras assured batting against Lyon and Kuhnemann He hit the first boundary of the innings a cover drive by stepping out to LyonHe mostly played on the front foot but stayed back to put a short ball from Kuhnemann away between midon and midwicket Four balls later he came down the track for a confident straight driveIn the morning session the pacespin combination of Umesh Yadav and R Ashwin ran through the Australian batting lineupAfter a rather quiet first hour when only 30 runs were scored in 16 overs without any wicket India lost their last six wickets for just 11 runs after starting the day at 156 for fourAshwin and Yadav took three wickets each to script Indias fightback after a forgettable opening day when the hosts were all out for 109Considering the conditions Australia did well to take a crucial 88run first innings leadThough India did not pick up any wicket in the first hour they did not allow Peter Handscomb 19 off 98 and Cameron Green 21 off 57 easy runs with Mohammed Siraj and Jadeja keeping things tightAs it has been the case throughout the series the wickets came in a heap after India broke the resistance of Handscomb whose ultra defensive innings came to end with an inside edge flying to Iyer at shortleg off AswhinAshwin surprisingly had to wait for almost an hour to get his first over of the day and when he did the wily operator made the ball talkHe got also rid of Alex Carey 3 and Lyon 5 to end with figures of three for 44 in 203 oversUmesh who targeted the stumps successfully trapped Green in front by getting one to straighten slightly off middlestump in his very first overHe cleaned up the tail by bowling fast and straight from round the wicket leaving Mitchell Starc 1 and Toddy Murphy clueless 0Compared to the opening day the ball did not do too much in the first hour with Handscomb and Green focussed on playing the forward defenceIt was only in the 10th over of the day that Green decided to step out and hit Jadeja over midon for a boundarySiraj opened the bowling with two short midwickets in place The plan was to bowl straight and stem the flow of runsThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever