Key events
58th over: India 191-6 (Jadeja 59, Reddy 13) Reddy fans a single first ball – an important one given Starc’s attack on him these past overs. Jadeja digs out a yorker before defending one square. He pinches a single and thinks about another but Josh Inglis, in the field for Hazlewood, pounces on it. A flurry of activity now as Starc goes up for an LBW, thinking it’s hit toe first. Meanwhile Reddy connects with bat and takes off for a run. Starc is muttering but Cummins can’t be convinced to review it.
57th over: India 188-6 (Jadeja 58, Reddy 11) That Starc maiden has smothered India and now Lyon sniffs an opportunity on leg stump against Reddy. Australia’s close in fielders are starting to chirp, sensing the moment. Reddy drives the final ball to long on for a single which puts him on strike to Starc next over. Could that be part of the plan?
56th over: India 186-6 (Jadeja 57, Reddy 10) Starc has his speed up to 140kph as India seek 60 to dodge the follow-on. Reddy doesn’t like it. He sets off for a single but is sent back by Jadeja as Labuschagne lunges and backhands a throw at the stumps. Starc rips a bouncer at almost 142kph which Reddy evades. He wants another single from the next but Marnus is quickly onto it again to make it a maiden.
55th over: India 186-6 (Jadeja 57, Reddy 10) As Lyon wheels in again, the Jadeja-Reddy partnership has reached 43 from 71 balls. More spin and bounce evident for Australia’s premier offie now and Jadeja sweeps to nullify both. A single to midwicket and Reddy drives another to long-on.
54th over: India 184-6 (Jadeja 56, Reddy 9) Starc to Jadeja and the first ball is wide and whacked square for a single. Nitish Kumar Reddy, the 21-year-old from Visakhapatnam, debuted in this series after hot form in the IPL. He’s done well for his nine runs so far today, calm and resolute with a nice arsenal of shots. He steps down and drives handsomely but straight to Labuschagne. Starc’s riposte is a bouncer which the youngster easily evades.
53rd over: India 183-6 (Jadeja 54, Reddy 9) After Starc completes the solitary delivery remaining from his over, Nathan Lyon gets things under way by wafting one outside off stump for Jadeja to swat away for two runs backward of point. Bit of spin there for the GOAT. Can he summon it again and gobble up this wagging India tail? We still have spitting rain coming down at the Gabba.
Players are taking the field and India are resuming at 180-6, a massive 265 runs behind Australia’s total and still need 66 runs to avoid the follow-on.
Josh Hazlewood has been spotted in the Australian dugout glumly doing a crossword. Doesn’t look like he’ll be bowling this arvo.
Happy days! The covers are coming off and we are set to restart at 3.30pm. Tea will now be taken at 5.30pm AEST with a minimum 38.1 overs to be bowled today.
Ravi Jadeja, possibly the world’s greatest allrounder, was left out of India’s Test side for the first two matches of this Border-Gavaskar series. Recalled for this Gabba Test, the lavishly-tattooed 36-year-old has shown selectors what they’ve been missing with a fighting half-century from 82 balls in this innings. He brought up the milestone with typical flair just before this latest rain break.
Things are looking up at the Gabba. Rain is easing and we have blue skies…
Cricket is the No 1 sport in India by a country mile but the country has a new hero in the form of newly-crowned world chess champion Gukesh Dommaraju. The 18-year-old this week became the youngest champion in the sport’s history, defeating China’s Ding Liren in the final game of their FIDE World Championship match in Singapore.
The “Tendulkar of Chess” met with an incredible reception at Chennai airport.
Good news from the Gabba: blue sky is breaking through.
Bad news from the Gabba: it’s still raining pretty hard.
Speaking of part-timers… here’s one of the all-time bowling performances from one of the all-time great batters: Allan Border’s 11-for at the SCG against West Indies in 1988/89 with what AB used to call, in typically humble style, his “left-arm nothings”.
Rain continues to fall at the Gabba but in Sydney it’s been scorching weather – and cricket. The Harbour City played host to a thriller in the opening round of the Big Bash (BBL|14) where the Sydney Sixers took on the Melbourne Renegades at the SCG.
With Josh Hazlewood injured and Mitchell Marsh still not 100%, captain Pat Cummins may look to his part-timers in order to give his frontline attack a breather.
Here are his options – who would you go to first?
Marnus Labuschagne – 13 Test wickets at 61.55 (Best 3-45)
Travis Head – 12 Test wickets at 34.58 (Best 4-10)
Steve Smith – 19 Test wickets at 53.05 (Best 3-18)
The covers are back on at the Gabba. A passing shower or hard rain? I’m calling the experts to find out…
52nd over: India 180-6 (Jadeja 52, Reddy 9) Starc sparks his 17th over with a lovely delivery angling into Jadeja. That worried the Indian allrounder and he’s keen to escape strike, albeit slow out of the blocks. Labuschagne swoops on the ball like a gull on a chip and shies at the non-striker’s end – just wide!
Oh no, here comes the rain again.
51st over: India 178-6 (Jadeja 51, Reddy 8) Nathan Lyon hasn’t bowled much in this series but, with Australia one-bowler down, he’ll be kept busy today. The old man from Young enters his 13th over of this Test with 1-33 and gets worked for easy drop ‘n’ run singles by both batters.
50th over: India 176-6 (Jadeja 50, Reddy 7) BANG! Ravi Jadeja must’ve enjoyed his lunch. He steps out and punches Starc’s first delivery of the session for FOUR down the ground. He salts the wound on ball four by turning one off his hip for another boundary. Starc almost appealed for LBW, instead he scowls all the way back to his mark. A sneaky single brings up Jadeja’s fifty and we get his trademark swirling sword celebration. Well played, Ravindra! His last five scores in Tests in Australia: 50*, 28*, 57, 81, 5.
The clouds have parted and Pat Cummins is leading his men back onto the field along with India’s undfeated batters Ravindra Jadeja (41 not out) and Nitish Kumar Reddy (7).
Mitchell Starc is at the top of his mark… and away we go!
With Josh Hazlewood at the hospital having scans on his calf injury, my contacts in the medical fraternity tell me calf tweaks come in three forms with radically different recovery times: Myofascial (10-21 days), Musculotendinous (4-8 weeks) or Tendinous injury (2-4 months).
Don’t strain yours running back to the telly. Umpires have given this Gabba greentop the green light and play will be under way soon!
As umpires take the field for that pitch inspection, debate continues to rage on whether NSW’s 19-year-old bat outta hell Sam Konstas should come into this Australian Test side in place of struggling openers Nathan McSweeney or Usman Khawaja.
Based on his innings for the Prime Minister’s XI against India a couple of weeks back, the answer isn’t so much ‘if’ as ‘when’…
Good news: the rain appears to have eased a little in Brisbane and we’ll have an official umpire inspection of the Gabba pitch in the next five minutes.
Does anyone remember the “Super Sopper” – saviour of wet cricket pitches in days of yore?
Kerry O’Keeffe reckons the risk Australia took on Josh Hazlewood was calculated.
“To look at the Australian strategy, I think they had in mind that Hazlewood should play this and miss Melbourne,” the 24-Test former tweaker has told Fox Sports. “Melbourne is by a long way his worst pitch in Australia and then Starc miss Sydney, which is a long way his worst pitch in Australia.
“So I think they factored in that Australia was going to play this one and that Boland, who loves the MCG would come in for Melbourne. And that may well be the case now anyway. The Boland numbers are irresistible.
“But questions will be asked, was he (Hazlewood) fit going into this game?”
It’s a good question, Skull. Australia has 14 wickets to take and one less quick to do it. Would Boland, fully fit and fresh from five wickets in the last Test, been a better bet?
Photograph: David Gray/AFP/Getty Images
An update of sorts on Josh Hazlewood who left the field earlier today after bowling a solitary over.
We’ve just seen vision of The Hoff being taken to hospital for scans on a calf injury. It looked like a presidential motorcade – all tinted windows and flashing cameras – but so far all Australia’s medical staff have told us is that The Bendemeer Bullet detected “calf awareness” in the warm up but took the field anyway for what amounted to live Test fitness assessment.
The bad news is that Hazlewood, who turns 34 in a fortnight, failed that test and is now in doubt for the fourth match in this series. The good news is that Scott Boland is suddenly back in the frame for a home Test return to the Melbourne Cricket Ground on Boxing Day, scene of his spectacular debut against England in 2021…
G’day cricket fans, Angus Fontaine here picking up the cudgels from Martin Pegan for the second half of today’s action.
Sorry to be start on a bum note but duty compels me to bear bad news from the get-go: it is raining at the Gabba. The light showers that began a few minutes back are now a much heavier downpour necessitating the heavy covers from the Gabba ground staff.
It means our 2.27pm AEST restart time is no more. Stay tuned for updates…
We’re only about halfway through the five-Test Border-Gavaskar Trophy series with everything still to play for, but play has wrapped up early across the Tasman with New Zealand finishing their year with the consolation of a thumping victory over England. The outstanding performance in Tim Southee’s final red-ball international came too late to prevent a 2-1 series loss to England that has dealt a heavy blow to New Zealand’s hope of qualifying for the World Test Championship final.
Ali Martin was at Seddon Park in Hamilton to cover the game and the series.
Australia started the session brightly with a gilt-edge first-ball chance off KL Rahul and the early wicket of Rohit Sharma coming soon after, while the players spent less time than feared off the field due to a rain delay. But India arguably had the better of the morning and will be pleased to have only lost two wickets while chipping away at Australia’s first innings lead. The tourists put on 126 runs across the session as Rahul made the most of his second-life to reach 84, and India now need 79 more with four wickets in hand to avoid the follow-on.
Australia might be reluctant to enforce the follow-on even if they race through the rest of the India lineup after lunch with their bowling stocks reduced by Josh Hazlewood heading off for a scan on a calf issue. Play will resume at 1.27pm local time in Brisbane / 2.27pm AEDT.
In the meantime, let’s return to Steve Smith’s catch to remove India’s most impressive batter on the day in KL Rahul.
49th over: India 167-6 (Jadeja 41, Reddy 7) Review! The in-close Australia fielders and keeper Alex Carey think they have heard a noise as Reddy plays around the corner but can’t get bat near the ball. Cummins is quick to send the decision upstairs but replays show the ball passed narrowly wide of the glove. Not sure where the noise came from.
The India support staff had earlier looked to run onto the field of play for an impromptu drinks break but were quickly sent back by the umpires. Would love to see more of that! And there was surely no excuse for a drink with time for only one more over before lunch anyway, as it proved.
48th over: India 165-6 (Jadeja 41, Reddy 5) Cummins toils away at a good length to Jadeja until the all-round whips off his pads towards the boundary. Lyon races around the rope to collect while diving forward and limit India to two runs. Jadeja does much the same from next delivery but picks out Lyon at deep backward square for a couple more.
47th over: India 161-6 (Jadeja 37, Reddy 5) Jadeja cuts for an easy single at deep point then Lyon has Reddy playing unusually watchfully with lunch now within sight.
Kev in Brisbane isn’t too keen to see his fellow Queenslander being thrown the ball even for a sneaky over before the next break.
“I’d rather see Alex Carey roll the arm over. With the pads on, he’d still be better than whatever you call what Marnus does!”
46th over: India 160-6 (Jadeja 36, Reddy 5) Cummins beats Reddy with a fuller ball that moves away off the seam and is just wide of taking an edge. We haven’t seen that for a while from the Australia skipper. Jadeja scampers through for a quick single after bunting the ball to short mid-off. Cummins picks up and throws while falling away but is narrowly wide of the stumps. That’s a nice little reminder that the Australians are in the game even on the brink of a long session.
45th over: India 158-6 (Jadeja 35, Reddy 4) Jadeja sweeps Lyon through the gap at square leg for four then ends the over with two more from a shorter ball sent through cover.
Byron from Perth has some firm views and a bit of creative thinking around whether Cummins should turn to Labuschagne with his bowling options reduced by Hazlewood’s injury concern.
“I hope Cummins never gives Marnus another over. His bowling at Optus was atrocious. S**t doesn’t always get wickets. Haven’t seen Smudge [Steve Smith] bowl for a while and he’s up and about this Test. Could be the move, something different and unexpected. A throwback even.”
44th over: India 152-6 (Jadeja 29, Reddy 4) Jadeja clips a fuller ball to the vacant square leg as Cummins drifts onto the pads a couple of times. Cummins digs in a bouncer as Reddy comfortably ducks and Carey dives to his left but can’t prevent the four byes.
43rd over: India 145-6 (Jadeja 26, Reddy 4) Australia get the breakthrough they needed before lunch and it takes a classic catch from Smith at first slip to clinch it. Lyon had hardly troubled Rahul but he extracts more bounce than the India opener perhaps expected. Nitish Kumar Reddy is the next batter at the crease and shows his intentions with a drive for four from his second ball faced.
Wicket! Rahul c Smith b Lyon 84 (India 141-6)
Redemption for Steve Smith after he spilled a sitter off KL Rahul at second slip from the first ball of the day. This time he pulls in a cracking one-hander from first slip as Rahul cuts hard. The ball was behind Smith by the time he got his right hand to the ball but it sticks and India lose a key wicket.
42nd over: India 141-5 (Rahul 84, Jadeja 26) Cummins returns in place of Starc as the Australia skipper keeps swinging the bowling changes. He once again chips away outside off, with Rahul’s pull to backward point the one run from the over.
Lyon hasn’t been able to find much out of this pitch yet despite cracks appearing amid the grassy green signs of life. With Hazlewood sidelined and sent off for scans on a calf concern, it wouldn’t surprise to see Marnus Labuschagne warming up and reminding his skipper that he himself enjoys a trundle.
But would we prefer to see Labuschagne bowling spin or seamers at this stage, or even at all? Let us know with an email or @martinpegan on Bluesky or X.
41st over: India 140-5 (Rahul 83, Jadeja 26) Jadeja slices away at a shorter ball from Lyon that races through backward point as McSweeney gives chase and dives to save one run. A reverse sweep from Rahul picks up one more.
40th over: India 136-5 (Rahul 82, Jadeja 23) Another half-life for Rahul as Starc gets the ball to rise sharply towards the ribs. Rahul gets his bat down just in time but the bounce into his feet almost spins back into the stumps. That was only just wide of off-stump. Rahul spins around to pull a single at deep square leg, Jadeja finds another at midwicket, then the opener ends the over with two more from a clip to an empty square leg.
39th over: India 132-5 (Rahul 79, Jadeja 22) Lyon pitches up to Rahul but the opener isn’t tempted to drive on the off-side. Rahul nudges a wider ball to backward point for a single.
38th over: India 131-5 (Rahul 78, Jadeja 22) Starc has Jadeja on the back foot with a ripping bouncer that has the batter swaying late to get out of the way. That’s the biggest sign of life we’ve seen from this pitch since the rain delay but the all-rounder remains. One from the over as Rahul passes the 77 that he made in the first Test in Perth.
37th over: India 130-5 (Rahul 77, Jadeja 22) Lyon has changed ends with an ominous crack opening up roughly in front of middle stump. Jadeja takes a large step forward with his front foot to defend comfortably. Lyon drops short and finds the first hint of bounce but Jadeja rocks back and cuts between point and cover for four.
36th over: India 126-5 (Rahul 77, Jadeja 18) Starc takes over from Lyon who has hardly tested the India batters. The pacer has the ball angling away from the left-hander Jadeja outside off as the all-rounder punches a fuller delivery straight for a couple that bring up the 50-run partnership. A single off the last ball of the over will keep Jadeja on strike.
35th over: India 123-5 (Rahul 77, Jadeja 15) Cummins and Rahul renew their battle. The batter defends a straight and fuller delivery then finds a single at midwicket. Jadeja punches a well-timed straight drive just out of Cummins’ reach and wide of the pile of sawdust. Head gives chase from mid-on with pads and all but even with a late dive can’t quite prevent the boundary.
34th over: India 117-5 (Rahul 76, Jadeja 10) Lyon again around the wicket to Rahul as the first ball drifts too far down leg. The right-hander clubs away around the corner but Marsh is perfectly placed to at least get a hand to the bouncing ball and limit a certain boundary to a single. Lyon finds his range outside off as Jadeja defends on the front foot whenever possible.