17 January,2021 07:02 AM IST | Sydney | Gaurav Joshi
Nathan Lyon (centre) celebrates Rohit Sharma`s dismissal
The storm clouds are approaching in the distance. The tea interval is just around the corner. Rohit Sharma looks irremovable. He has handled the swing and pace of Starc, the seam of Hazlewood and the precision of Cummins with ease. The runs are starting to flow off his willow. Australians know he is the big scalp. He's the man that can score briskly and take the game on. So, Tim Paine turns to Nathan Lyon. The off-spinner immediately blocks Sharma's favourite shot against spin bowlers by employing the mid-on three quarters back on the boundary. He wants him to loft the ball in that direction. Even during the Sydney Test, the long-on was in place from the outset and Sharma had still managed to clear the fielder for a six. It was risky, but it had come off.
In the second innings, Sharma changed his approach by using his wrists to loft the ball more towards wide long-on. But Lyon knew long on was definitely playing on Sharma's mind.
He either had to take it on or opt for a different stroke. In Sydney, it had led to him attempting the sweep, but in Brisbane he tried to take it on again. A bit of credit should be given to Lyon because he fired it on leg-stump which cramped Sharma from hitting through the line of the ball. In the end, Sharma mistimed his shot and was caught on the boundary. The momentum was back in Australia's favour.
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Earlier, Sharma's Mumbai teammate Shardul Thakur should have been proud of his effort, finishing with figures of 24-6-94-3. The Mumbai pacer had toiled hard on Day One and continued his approach of bowling outswingers to the Australian middle-order. His length was impeccable on Day Two and he was the man who triggered Australia's late-order collapse.
The beautiful outswingers kept moving away from Tim Paine and eventually he pushed hard at one. It was classic swing bowling.
Thakur then set up Pat Cummins by bowling a couple of outswingers and then slipping in a toe-crushing yorker. The two wickets changed the momentum and enabled India to restrict Australia to a par total of 369.
