Tamil Nadu rookies Washington Sundar and T Natarajan rock

Tamil Nadu bowlers Washington Sundar and T Natarajan, who were not originally part of the Test team, impress on Day One as injury-ravaged India restrict Australia to 274-5

Thangarasu Natarajan wasn’t even in the original squad to Australia. He was drafted in after Varun Chakravarthy withdrew from the T20 squad due to an injury. 

Washington Sundar was told to stay behind for the Test series because India wanted an off-spinner to prepare the batsmen against Australian offie Nathan Lyon.

At the Gabba on Friday, Sundar was India’s premier spinner and Natarajan took the new ball. Joining the pair was Shardul Thakur, Mohammed Siraj and Navdeep Saini. Between them, the five bowlers had played just four Tests. In terms of Test wickets, it was the least experienced attack that Australia has faced since 1880.

Both Tamil Nadu debutants stuck to the plan. Sundar, a product of white-ball cricket, was given a specific role. He had to bowl on the line of the leg-stump to the right handers with a packed leg-side field. The strategy led to the downfall of Steven Smith (36). But after an economical 10 overs in which he conceded just 18 runs, Sundar started to err in line and length.

Natarajan started with a couple of no-balls before settling into rhythm. He then swung the ball, changed his angle cleverly and made scoring difficult. Importantly, he lured Matthew Wade (45) and Marnus Labuschagne (108) into false pull strokes to swing the momentum back in India’s favour. But late in the day, his pace had dropped by 10 kmph. 

Then, there was Thakur, who has sent down more balls in the nets on this tour than any other bowler. And he was rewarded for his effort. Things began perfectly with a wicket off his first ball, but thereafter it began to go downhill.

By no means was Thakur poor, but one could sense that he would have lured more Australian batsmen to play his outswingers had there been a Ravichandran Ashwin or a Jasprit Bumrah bowling from the other end. To Thakur’s credit, he persisted with the outswingers, but as the day wore on, the Australian batsmen started piercing them through the covers. Navdeep Saini strained his groin and left the field midway through the opening day. Saini’s absence meant India didn’t have an enforcer in the attack.

Despite the lack of Test matches, all the bowlers did an admirable job. Taking five wickets on a placid Gabba pitch was a terrific effort, but as they discovered during Day One, it only gets tougher with each spell in Test cricket.

Brief scores
Australia 274-5 (M Labuschagne 108, M Wade 45;  T Natarajan 2-63, W Sundar 1-63, M Siraj 1-51) v India

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