It was a dramatic morning on Day 1 of the 3rd Test of the Border Gavaskar Trophy.
Batting first, India’s middle-order faced a disappointing collapse, with Cheteshwar Pujara (1), Ravindra Jadeja (4), Shreyas Iyer (0), and KS Bharat (17) all falling cheaply. Virat Kohli was the highest scorer in the Indian innings with 22 runs.
Australian legend Ian Chappell didn’t look much impressed with Shreyas Iyer who is considered a strong player of spin in the Indian batting lineup.
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“Cheteshwar Pujara is very jumpy. I think right through the series he has been very jumpy. I keep hearing that Shreyas Iyer is a very good player of spin bowling, but I haven’t seen it yet, and I’m not convinced that he is. To me, he is a bit of a panicker,” Chappell said on ESPNCricinfo.
“There are some players in the Indian side that haven’t convinced me that they’re good players of spin bowling. I thought that the Australians spooked India early on. A couple of things happened with the pitch. The Australian spinners bowled very accurately. But what we saw was Australian-type batting from the Indians.”
Chappell further praised Usman Khawaja, who scored an impressive 60 on a difficult Indore surface. “When Australia batted, particularly [Usman] Khawaja, he was very good. [Marnus] Labuschagne had a good partnership with him. There was more of the Rohit Sharma batting when he got the century in Australia’s innings. To me, it was Australia who outplayed India and definitely deserved to have the lead,” Chappell added.