India vs Australia 1st Test: Is it about the Pitch or Axar, Jadeja were better than the Australia Batters?

Add as a preferred source on Google

India are taking on Australia in the first match of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy in Nagpur. The home side currently have a healthy lead in the first innings.

The questions about the Nagpur pitch were asked by Australian media since they saw the pictures of the pitch for the first time. Their pundits, journalists all have been sceptical about the pitch in Nagpur.

Social Media was poured with many posts which criticized the Nagpur top and said it was simply a ploy to cripple their batters. Amid all the complaints, they forgot even India had to bat on the same top.

Indian Left-Handed Batters:

Now fast forwarding to the 2nd Day of the Test, Australia bundled out for 177 and India were 240/7. The match was hanging in the balance and the visitors would have been sniffing an all-out. But in came Axar Patel, and formed an outstanding partnership with Ravindra Jadeja.

Together, the pair added 88 runs for the 8th wicket, before Jadeja was cleaned up b Todd Murphy on the 3rd day. Jadeja scored 70 off 185 balls, tackling the likes of Nathan Lyon and debutant Todd Murphy who has picked up 6 wickets.

Axar Patel still bats as he is unbeaten on 61 runs, without any visible difficulty to counter the spinners. And remember, Ravindra Jadeja and Axar Patel comes to bat and no.7 and no.9 respectively.

Australian Left-Handed Batters:

Now coming to the left-handed batters of the Aussies. India's tactics to curb the left-handers of the visitors didn't even require as half of them didn't even survive till the spin. Both David Warner (1) and Usman Khawaja (1) departed early in the innings. Warner's stumps were rattled by Mohammed Shami, while Khawaja was caught in the crease by Mohammed Siraj.

Ravindra Jadeja, who picked up a fifer in the first innings, even only one left-handed batter was his victim as Matt Renshaw, who departed for a Golden duck.

The only southpaw who batted reasonably was Alex Carey. The wicketkeeper-batter scored 36 runs off 33 balls and implemented himself well. He was cleaned up by Ravichandran Ashwin.

Aussie Batters were Poor on the Day:

It was nothing but lack of proper application by the Australian batters against Indian bowlers as a whole, and the pitch was no Boogeyman. In the same conditions, perhaps worse, Axar Patel and Ravindra Jadeja both got fifties, and they are not top six in the batting lineup. Hence it must serve as a lesson to the Australian media that howling and criticizing host countries may not be the way forward, proper preparation must remain the main focus.

Steve Smith also came on to say before the match that the pitch was curated with a purpose and it was tailor-made for the left-arm spinners of India. Well, he may be right, but he needs to look in the mirror. The pitches in Perth or Brisbane don't look as a pitch, it just looks like Forest sometimes, with the amount of grass in those. And still, India have gone on to win the last two Test series in Australia.

Hence, they need to calm down. Hopefully, they will be at the end of this Test series.