Rishabh Pant affected six dismissals in the first innings of the Test match
Rishabh Pant matched former India captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni's record of most catches in an innings in Test cricket on Saturday.
Pant took the catch of Josh Hazlewood to grab his sixth catch of the innings and match Dhoni's record, who also took equal number of catches against New Zealand in Wellington back in 2009.
Other than Hazlewood, he also took the catches of Usman Khawaja, Peter Handscomb, Time Paine, Mitchell Starc and Travis Head over day two and three of the Test match at the Adelaide Oval.
This is also the most number of catches taken by an Indian wicketkeeper in Australia. The previous best was by Dhoni, when he took five catches in Perth in 2008.
Pant bettered his record of five catches in an innings in Nottingham and also the likes of Syed Kirmani, Wriddhiman Saha and Nayan Mongia, who also had taken five catches on more than one ocassion.
Pant's catch of Hazlewood ended Australia's innings on 235 with India securing a first innings lead of 15 runs. However, India couldn't come out and set the ball rolling as rain continued to hamper proceedings.
Inclement weather first delayed play by 45 minutes in the morning session and then there were two more delays in the first session before lunch was taken at 1.12 pm local time.
During the first 20 minutes of play, starting from overnight 191 for seven, Australia crossed 200 in the 91st over but India managed to sneak in a breakthrough before rain came again. Mitchell Starc (15) was caught behind off Jasprit Bumrah (3/47) as covers came on.
Play was held up for 55 minutes thereafter, and the number of overs for the day were reduced to 79. On resumption, the remaining one-hour session was cut short again after 40 minutes but this time India made good used of the overs.
Both Bumrah and Ishant Sharma (2/47) were guilty of bowling shorter to the tail-enders, and it didn't change this morning either. Nathan Lyon (24 not out) made good use of this, hitting two fours and a six, as he put on 31 runs for the ninth wicket with Travis Head (72).
Head's immaculate knock came to an end when he edged Mohammed Shami (2/58) behind, and the very next ball, the pacer finished things off with Hazlewood out caught similarly for a first-ball duck.
Head faced 167 deliveries in all, inclusive of six fours.
Australia were happier of the two sides having added 44 runs in just 10.4 overs of play. In their bid to get the lower order out quickly, India were guilty of leaking easy runs.
(With PTI inputs)
