Bengaluru: Off-spinner Nathan Lyon claimed a career-best haul of eight wickets to help Australia bowl out India for a paltry 189 and take opening day honours in the second Test in Bengaluru on Saturday.
Lyon, whose figures of 8-50 became the best by a visiting bowler on Indian soil, wreaked havoc in the final session of play as India lost their last five batsmen for 15 runs. He eclipsed former South African pacer Lance Klusner’s show of 8-64 at Kolkata in 1996.
Lyon later said he drew inspiration by watching videos of his Indian counterpart Ravichandran Ashwin, but stuck to his strength of extracting bounce from the track at the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium. “I don’t know what to say. I watched a lot of Ashwin tapes, but I stuck to my strength of getting bounce. I bowled about 1200 balls in Dubai,” Lyon said at the end of the first day’s play.
“We worked hard as a bowling group. We discussed how to bowl in India, the toughest place to tour for us.”
“That last hour was big for me, I had my pads on so this is the first time I have smiled. I worked a lot with John Davison in the lead-up to the Big Bash League (BBL) games, used to bowl an hour every day. He can take a lot of credit as well. There were some cracks there, and I was trying to hit some,” he added.
Indian opener Lokesh Rahul top-scored with a gritty 90 but failed to find support at his home ground.
Australia were 40 for no loss at stumps with openers David Warner (23) and Matt Renshaw (15) at the crease. The visitors trail India by 149 runs in the first innings.
Ajinkya Rahane added misery to India’s already existing woes after he dropped Warner on nine off pace spearhead Ishant Sharma.
The 29-year-old Lyon, who bettered his previous best of 7-94 against India in Delhi in 2013, once again beat the hosts at their own game of spin.
The hosts were bowled out for 105 and 107 during their opening loss in Pune last week, conceding a 1-0 lead to Australia in the four-match series.
But the pitch in Bengaluru, which has an average first innings score of 451 in the last seven Tests, seemed to offer no demons like the turning track in Pune that was rated poor by the match referee.
Lyon struck shortly after lunch to get India skipper Virat Kohli trapped lbw for 12, as the batsman once again offered no shot to an Australian spinner. He was bowled by left-arm spinner Steve O’Keefe in the first Test.
Kohli, who had a rare flop in Pune with scores of 0 and 13, faltered after choosing to pad up Lyon’s off-spin that headed straight onto the stumps and was adjudged lbw.
Rahul, who has survived two dropped catches on 30 and 61 at his home venue, did grind his way against the Aussie attack but got little support from the other end.
Rahul, who recorded his third Test fifty in his 15th match, finally was out to Lyon. The batsman injured his shoulder during an ugly slog against Steve O’Keefe in the latter part of his innings.
Rahul’s 61-run second wicket stand with Cheteshwar Pujara (17) seemed to be the only bit of resistance in the Indian batting. Karun Nair also contributed with 26.
Earlier pacemen Starc, who got opener Abhinav Mukund for nought, and Josh Hazlewood bowled probing spells to rattle the Indian batting early in the day.
