Australia v India 1st Test

A pink-ball Test in Adelaide

The first Test of India's 2020/21 tour of Australia was played under lights at Adelaide Oval with the pink ball, and India, sending Prithvi Shaw and Mayank Agarwal out to open, chose to bat first. Shaw was out for a duck in the second ball of the match, bowled by Mitchell Starc, an early jolt that India's middle order spent the rest of the first innings recovering from.

Kohli and Pujara build a lead

Cheteshwar Pujara made 43 from 160 balls, batting with the patience he was known for, and Virat Kohli, India's captain, made 74 before he was run out in a mix-up, a rare batting error at the end of an otherwise well-constructed innings. Ajinkya Rahane added 42, and India were eventually bowled out for 244, Mitchell Starc the most successful Australian bowler with four wickets and Pat Cummins next best with three.

Ashwin and Yadav share the wickets

When Australia batted, it was India's spinner and their seam-bowling all-rounder who did the most damage. Ravichandran Ashwin took 4 wickets, including a caught-and-bowled dismissal of Travis Head, and Umesh Yadav finished with 3, while Jasprit Bumrah removed both Australian openers, Matthew Wade and Joe Burns, both lbw. Marnus Labuschagne, who made 47, was the one recognised Australian batter to build a substantial innings, and Steven Smith made just 1 before he was caught off Ashwin, an early sign of how difficult the Adelaide surface would be for stroke play under lights once the shine had gone.

Paine's fighting 73

Australia's reply struggled against India's attack. Marnus Labuschagne made 47, but the rest of the top order fell cheaply to Jasprit Bumrah, Umesh Yadav and Ravichandran Ashwin, who took three wickets, and Australia slipped to 111 for 6. Tim Paine, the Australian captain, then played the innings that kept the match from getting away from his side entirely, finishing unbeaten on 73 with 10 fours. Australia were all out for 191, 53 runs behind India's total, and with a lead in hand and two results still possible, India's position looked entirely sound heading into their second innings.

Twenty-one overs

What happened next is still one of the most startling passages of play in modern Test cricket. India's second innings lasted barely 21 overs. Prithvi Shaw was bowled by Pat Cummins for 4, and the innings kept collapsing from there: 7 for 1, then 15 for 5, then 19 for 6, the recognised batting gone inside 14 overs. Jasprit Bumrah, Cheteshwar Pujara, Mayank Agarwal, Ajinkya Rahane and Virat Kohli were all out for single figures within a handful of overs of each other, the whole top and middle order folding on a pitch that had offered nothing like this movement to Australia's batters two days earlier.

The detail of it reads almost unbelievably even now. Jasprit Bumrah, sent in ahead of the recognised middle order, was caught and bowled by Pat Cummins for 2 with the score still on 15, and in the same passage of play Cheteshwar Pujara, Mayank Agarwal and Ajinkya Rahane were all out too, without India adding a single run: four wickets fell for no addition to the score at all, leaving India 15 for 5. Kohli survived a little longer before he too was caught, off Cummins, for 4, and by the time that spell had passed, India's only realistic route back into the match had disappeared entirely. Tim Paine, behind the stumps, took the catches that accounted for Agarwal, Pujara, Rahane, and later Vihari and Ashwin as well, five catches in the innings in total, one of the most productive innings any wicketkeeper has had in the field in a Test match.

Hazlewood and Cummins share the damage

Josh Hazlewood took 5 wickets and Pat Cummins 4, sharing all nine wickets to fall between them, bowling with relentless accuracy either side of the pink ball's movement under lights. Hanuma Vihari made 8 and Umesh Yadav was unbeaten on 4 at the end, but there was no recovery: India were all out for 36, their lowest total in the history of Test cricket, with Mohammed Shami, who had suffered a broken arm batting, retired hurt rather than formally dismissed. It left Australia needing only 90 to win.

Australia finish it inside a session

Matthew Wade made 33 before he was run out, and Joe Burns, unbeaten at the end on 51, saw Australia home alongside Steven Smith. Australia reached 93 for 2, winning by 8 wickets, a target chased down inside a single session, well before the close of what had been scheduled as only the third day's play. Tim Paine was named man of the match for his first-innings 73, the innings that had kept Australia's deficit from growing any larger before India's remarkable second-innings collapse turned the whole match around entirely.

What came after Adelaide

India's 36 all out, and the 8-wicket defeat that followed it, was as bad as the tour got. Without Kohli, who returned home after the Adelaide Test for the birth of his child, India won two of the next three Tests (Melbourne and, most famously, the Gabba, where Australia had not lost in decades) and drew the other, in Sydney, to win the series 2-1. The Adelaide collapse is remembered now mainly as the low point that the rest of the tour is measured against, the archive here running to March 2024 and not covering anything beyond that series for either side.

The full scorecard for this match, innings by innings, is on this page, and both sides can be followed further on the India and Australia team pages. In The Follow-On you can take India's batting order out under lights and see whether you fare any better than 36 all out.

Sources

• CricArcade Test archive: the full scorecard, fall of wickets and partnerships on this page
• ESPNcricinfo: Australia v India 2020/21, first Test, Adelaide Oval, scorecard and report
• Wisden Cricketers' Almanack 2021: the Border-Gavaskar Trophy 2020/21