India's second innings lasted only 36.5 overs, as Australia skipper Pat Cummins used the short ball effectively to claim 5 for 57.
Pat Cummins took five wickets as Australia maintained their unblemished record in ‘Pink-ball’ Tests with a thumping 10-wicket victory over India in the second Test in Adelaide on Sunday to level the five-match series 1-1 in just two-and-a-half days.
This is the shortest-ever Test between India and Australia in terms of balls bowled.
Starting Day 3 at 128 for 5, Nitish Kumar Reddy's (42) cavalier approach prevented a second successive innings defeat under lights as India were bowled out for 175 in the second innings.
The required 19 runs were a formality, achieved in just 3.2 overs.
India's second innings lasted only 36.5 overs, as skipper Cummins used the short ball effectively to claim 5 for 57.
Scott Boland (3/51) inflicted early damage, while Mitchell Starc (2/60) chipped in with crucial wickets.
Such was the dominance of Australia’s three premier quicks that Cummins did not even need Mitchell Marsh and Nathan Lyon in the second innings. In fact, the specialist spinner and all-rounder bowled just five overs between them in the entire game.
After the facile 295-run win in Perth, India’s batting unit won't be too amused to learn that they survived a total of only 81 overs across both innings, which isn't even a whole day of Test match batting.
It was a tale of two shoddy batting efforts as the two senior-most players, Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli, looked well past their best.
Jasprit Bumrah gave it all but lacked a potent bowling partner at the other end.
Had India pulled off a coup in this game, it would have been something miraculous, but Starc, the undisputed 'OG' of Pink-Ball Tests with 74 victims, bowled a delivery on length which Rishabh Pant (28) couldn’t fully press forward while jabbing his bat at it. The regulation catch was duly accepted by Steve Smith, stationed at second slip.
Reddy, who is time and again showing that positive attitude and big heart at times trumps technique, continued to defy the Australians.
In the first two Tests, his commitment and ability to gut it out was exemplary. He hasn't yet got a fifty, but scores of 41, 37 not out, 42 and 42 shows a lot of promise for the future and his seam-up wicket-to-wicket bowling can only improve if he stays around the national team.
But it was difficult to survive the Pink Kookaburra as Ravichandran Ashwin perished trying to hook Cummins.
Australia’s skipper then completed Harshit Rana's misery with a short ball that could have knocked his head off and it didn't take much time to polish off the tail.
