Australian pacer Pat Cummins showcased his incredible skills to dismiss Mayank Agarwal on the opening day of the Pink Ball Test in Adelaide. After India faced a setback in the very first over with the wicket of Prithvi Shaw, Agarwal, along with Cheteshwar Pujara, did well to stabilise the Indian innings before Cummins castled the former's stumps with a nipped-back delivery.
It was a bowling masterclass from the bowler who persisted with the same line against Mayank Agarwal across multiple overs, and eventually reaped the reward.
Cummins played with a line marginally outside off on the good length, largely seaming the delivery away from Agarwal with ocassiona nip-backers. On the wicket-taking delivery, the bowler pitches the delivery near the off-stump and Mayank decides to play a flat-footed shot, keeping in mind the good length.
However, this leaves the batsman with a huge bat-pad gap and the ball takes a sharp nip-back into the stumps. According to Cricviz, there was a 1.4 degrees of seam on the delivery, which was the most Cummins had extracted in the innings.
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Earlier, Mitchell Starc exploited Prithvi Shaw's weak footwork outside off-stump to trap him on the second delivery of the game. With the ball angling back into the right-hander, Starc castled Shaw's stumps after the batsman had committed for a drive through covers.
At Dinner, India were 41/2 in 25 overs, with Cheteshwar Pujara showing some resilience for his 88-ball 17, while captain Virat Kohli (5*) had joined him at the crease.
India had won the toss and opted to bat.