India vs Australia | Takeaways: Mayank Agarwal’s Test initiation, and another dead MCG pitch

Welcome to Test cricket, Mayank!

Mayank Agarwal’s story has not been a linear one. He has had his fair share of struggles before becoming India’s Test player No. 295. In the 2017-18 season, he scored a 31 against Assam and a pair of ducks against Hyderabad, which meant Mir Kaunain Abbas was licking his lips to be ahead of him in the pecking order. However, the Karnataka team management decided to give him another chance against Maharashtra, where he scored a triple century to seal his place once and for all. Since then, he has 1160 Ranji Trophy runs, 723 in the next Vijay Hazare Trophy, twin hundreds on England Lions tour, a double hundred against South Africa A, and a hundred and a fifty in the Quadrangular Series in September. He was not knocking the door for a spot in the Indian team, he was literally breaking it. 

Agarwal couldn’t have been asked for a better occasion to make his debut too. Melbourne’s atmosphere might have been intimidating for many visiting batsmen, but it is the flattest of all Australian grounds and the movement was next to zero. Apart from the moisture in the surface, there was nothing for the bowlers to take the benefit from. The sluggish surface in the first hour quickened up a bit in the second hour which allowed Pat Cummins to bounce out Hanuma Vihari, but Agarwal kept on fending them knowing that was not a threat at all on such surfaces. 

While Nathan Lyon was a danger in itself throughout the series for India, Agarwal tackled him superbly by putting away the fuller and wider deliveries. But most importantly, he countered the off-spinner by playing shots in front of the square, making sure Lyon was never settled against him. He scored 14 runs while coming down the ground against the Aussie - a tactic that Pujara employed in the Adelaide Test. It was probably the working of an uncluttered mind, but refreshing anyway. 

Decoding India’s plans to go slow

After the first hour, the pitch quickened up just enough to allow Pat Cummins to bowl some bouncers and while one hit Hanuma Vihari on his head, the second one dismissed him. Patience was the call of the day for both batsmen and bowlers due to the lack of movement. India understood grinding Australia down was the best option available because once the game moved on, it will be easier for the batsmen to score runs.

As weather forecast says, tomorrow is going to be a hot day in Melbourne and given both Virat Kohli and Cheteshwar Pujara are well set and understood the way the pitch was behaving, they could have given the home side a long day tomorrow so as to make sure that India wouldn’t chase a big score in the fourth innings. Another school of thought could be Australia’s batting line-up, which still remains brittle and the exclusion of Peter Handscomb, who is definitely a better player of spin bowling and understands MCG more than anyone else, means India have a relatively thin line-up to crack. 

Australia’s negative tactics also helped India’s cause as after the lunch Australia bowlers had to bring their length back, and as Australia’s assistant coach Brad Haddin conceded “we thought we might've got a bit of swing and movement off the wicket but it hasn't been the way. We've spoken about being a little bit unpredictable and setting different fields to get batsmen to mix-up their feet and perhaps make a wrong decision."

MCG - Do you seriously want to keep Boxing Day like that?

For the people of Victoria, Boxing Day is an occasion to revel in the glory of the Australian Cricket, be present at MCG and watch the venue producing a great contest. However, in the last five years, it has gotten a terrible reputation for itself by producing a slow and attritional wicket. The collective skill of that celebrated pace trio, Cummins, Starc and Hazlewood, failed to draw edge no more than 11% and that says something about "the G".

Tim Paine had to resort to Nathan Lyon within the first hour when he realised that pacers were not going to be effective. While Pat Cummins was operating with a completely different tactic, Mitchell Starc realised that bowling full wasn’t going to help him, which forced him to pull his lengths back. As Cricviz noted, 47% of Starc’s deliveries were short balls and now, the result is evident as he had to adapt himself. On the other hand, Pat Cummins was pretty impressive today and dug the ball short regardless of the lack of response. He realised that he had to bowl stump to stump and keep the batsmen playing, and he executed the plan well by being relentlessly accurate. 

Australia must not remember such a dead pitch in Perth almost forced Mitchell Johnson into retirement and if MCG will carry on preparing such pitches, the skill and willingness to bowl will die down. It will also exhaust their bowlers, shorten careers, and damage the game to an extent Boxing Day Test would lose its charm. It’s high time that Matt Page pulls off his WACA experience to make MCG great again.

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