Australia captain Pat Cummins led form the front as he piled the pressure on the Indian bowlers along with Steve Smith on Day 2 of Boxing Day Test. Cummmins scored 49 runs off 63 balls to take Australia past the 400 run mark in Melbourne and solidifying his team’s stamp in the match.
Cummins was eventually undone by a delivery from Ravindra Jadeja where the right hander lost his shape a little bit and Nitish Kumar Reddy took a stunning running catch to dismiss the Australian captain.
Cummins came in to bat on a score of 299/6 when it seemed like Australian innings could come to end soon. However, the Aussie skipper put a high price on his wicket and counter-attacked the Indian bowlers for a hard-fought 49.
While Cummins has scored 1354 in his 65 Test matches so far at an average of 16.7, it has long been known that he is a much better batter than those numbers show. Cummins had also won a lot of praise during the 1st Test match when he came in to bat as a night watchman in the fourth innings of Perth Test after bowling over 25 overs in last innings. Cummins, however, couldn’t show his heroics in the 1st Test and was eventually dismissed on a score of 2.
Australia take commanding position in Melbourne:
After the dismissal of Cummins, Steve Smith (134) paired up with Mitchell Starc (15) to make Australia the front-runner in the match with a score of 454/7 at Lunch on Day 2 in Melbourne. The Indian bowlers now have a tough job at their hands to restrict this Aussie innings to under 500 in order to stand any chance of getting back in the game.
