India's Rishabh Pant hammered the fastest half-century by a visiting batsman on Australian soil while Scott Boland bowled superbly to claim 4-42 to leave the fifth and final Test between the two teams being played in Sydney tantalisingly poised on the knife's edge at the second day on Saturday.
On another intriguing day ruled by the pace bowlers who shared 15 wickets for 313 runs scored, India bowled out Australia for 181 for a narrow four-run lead, despite skipper and pace spearhead Jasprit Bumrah not bowling after the morning session because of a back spasm.
India reached 141/6 in their second innings to leave the match evenly poised. Jadeja was batting on eight from 39 balls and Sundar was on six off 17 when play was stopped on Saturday. India will be looking up to their remaining batters to add as many runs as possible while Australia will be hoping to get them out for as little as possible to chase a smaller target in the fourth innings and complete a convincing win in the series.
Pant, who scored a patient 40 in the first innings, blazed to a sensational 33-ball 61 to wrest back the initiative a bit from the hosts, who had reduced India to 78/4 at one time and were looking to run through the innings by stumps on Day 2.
But Pant's brilliant counter-attacking knock, during which he completed his 50 off 29 balls with the help of a six against Mitchell Starc, bettered the previous best - 33-ball efforts by England's John Brown (Melbourne 1895) and West Indies' Roy Fredericks (Perth 1975). It was also the second-fastest half-century by an Indian batter in a Test match - a ball slower than his 28-ball half-century against Sri Lanka in Bengaluru in 2022.
The Indian pacers got into the act immediately after Australia resumed at the overnight score of 9/1 and bowled out the hosts for 181 despite the absence of skipper Bumrah who had to leave the stadium due to some unspecified injury soon after the lunch break. It was a big setback for India as Bumrah is their most successful bowler in the series.
Bumrah, who had sent back Usman Khawaja off the last ball of the first day's play, struck an early blow on day two when he got a length delivery to draw a faint outside edge from Marnus Labuschagne’s bat and Pant completed a regulation catch. India took the review, and Snicko detected a spike, meaning Labuschagne was out for just two.
That was Bumrah's 32nd wicket of the series, taking him past Bishen Singh Bedi's tally of 31 scalps to make him India's highest wicket-taker in a Test series in Australia.
Sam Konstas (23), Travis Head (4), and Steve Smith (33 off 57 balls) fell in the morning session as Australia reached 101/5 at lunch and the Indians were sniffing blood. On Saturday, Smith failed to reach the 10,000-run mark in Test cricket.
But Bumrah's injury hampered India's attack and with debutant Beau Webster scoring a fighting half-century - 57 off 105 balls, hitting five fours in the process, Australia inched closer to India's total.
But Prasidh Krishna and Mohammed Siraj picked three wickets each to make up for Bumrah's absence in an excellent bowling performance as India took a minuscule four-run lead, bowling out Australia for 181 on day two of the fifth Test at the Sydney Cricket Ground on Saturday.
What was encouraging for India was that they claimed the last five wickets without Bumrah. Krishna, playing his first match of the series, stepped up to the plate to break two crucial partnerships - the 57-run stand between Smith and Webster for the fifth wicket and another crucial partnership of 41 runs between Webster and Alex Carey (21 off 36) - to pick 3-42.
Siraj finished with 3-51 and young all-rounder Nitish Kumar Reddy claimed 2-32 as the Indian pacers split the wickets between them as India took a four-run lead.While the bowlers fought back for India, their batting woes continued as the top-order failed once again and the visitors were virtually staring at defeat after being reduced to 78/4 with KL Rahul (13), Yashasvi Jaiswal (22), Virat Kohli (6) and Shubman Gill (13) departing just when they looked like getting the hang of things in the middle.
But Pant changed the dynamics of the match with a roller-coaster of a knock. While he was defensive and circumspect in the first innings and scored 40 off 98 balls, taking blows to his hands, head, and body, on Saturday he came out firing on all cylinders. His positive intent was evident when he blasted Boland for a huge six off the first ball he faced.
The beefy wicketkeeper-batter struck India's second fasted half-century in Test cricket off 29 balls, hitting shots all over the ground, though a few of them brought the fans' hearts into their mouth as he did not look in total control while executing them. He hammered six boundaries and four sixes, using drives, step-out lofted shots, pull shots, and half-pulls as he lived by the sword in the middle.
Pant made a brilliant 61 - severely punishing the Australian bowlers, hitting Webster for three successive boundaries in the 18th over, treating him with disdain in his next over with a huge six into the stands over deep square and a four slogged behind square leg. Pant also struck Mitchell Starc for back-to-back sixes in the square region as he left the crowd thoroughly entertained.
But a few minutes later, he had the Indian fans hopping mad as he got out at the most inappropriate time once again, chasing a very wide delivery by Pat Cummins for Carey to gleefully pouch it. Pant was visibly disappointed with that shot and his teammates too would not be much happy as he could have added a lot more runs if he had stayed till the end of the day.
India's troubles continued with Reddy getting out for four runs off 21 balls but Jadeja, who was dropped by Smith at second slip off Webster in the penultimate over before the close of play, and Sundar managed to survive and will hope to add as many runs as possible to the total on the third day and help India win the match and square off the series 2-2.
At the end of the day, pacer Krishna admitted Pant's knock was entertaining but also vital and has given the Indian team hope to continue to fight in this match.
I mean, we enjoy the way that he plays the game and we would also like to play the game aggressively. Well, I don't know about the plans or the meetings that the batsmen had, but it was it was really fun. All of us were sitting together, the bowlers were sitting together and watching him bat.
I know it's a lot of risk, but then that's the way the game is played today. Well, The thing is if you try to go after as well, there's a lot of risk involved and the bowlers can play every single ball.
The pacer said India are still in the match and they would be hoping to add as many runs as possible so that they have a good target to bowl at, though they do not have any particular number of runs in their mind.
I think scoring as many runs as possible would be great for us because we don't really know what the wicket will be behaving like (tomorrow). It's going up, it's going down. If you can be aggressive, there is risk involved, but you get a reward of runs. But yeah, there's, there's no particular number in mind. But then as many runs as we score would be great.
The team is really pumped up. You could see the way that we were, we were going after even when we were bowling, the way that we were moving between overs. I think we're really confident about the plans that we have in mind and the skillset that we have. So we are really here for a fight and we make sure we get it our way this game.
