Watch: Nathan Lyon turns a ball viciously to bowl Cheteshwar Pujara for record 12th Test dismissal
Watch: In the third Test match of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy, Nathan Lyon turned a ball viciously to clean bowl Cheteshwar Pujara.
After Rohit Sharma and Shubman Gill got away to a brisk start at the Holkar Cricket Stadium in Indore, Steve Smith replaced Cam Green with Matt Kuhnemann in the sixth over of the Test match.
Kuhnemann found turn in his first over, and claimed both Rohit and Gill with his first eight balls as India slipped from 27-0 to 36-2. Encouraged by Kuhnemann’s success, Smith introduced his senior spinner Nathan Lyon.
Bowling from over the wicket, Lyon tossed one up outside off stump. Staying on the back foot, Pujara wanted to punch it against the turn, through cover or cover point.
The ball turned at a near-absurd angle for a pitch on which only 50 balls had been bowled until then. Worse, it also kept low. In his attempt to play his shot, Pujara had accounted for neither the turn nor the lack of bounce.
The ball crashed into middle and leg, and Pujara fell for a solitary run. He has now fallen to Lyon 12 times in Test cricket, his joint-most against any bowler. James Anderson has also dismissed Pujara 12 times. For Lyon, Pujara’s 12 wickets are the most. No other India has been dismissed more times by a bowler in Test, with Pujara (Lyon & Anderson) now level with Sunil Gavaskar-Derek Underwood.
India also lost Ravindra Jadeja, Shreyas Iyer, Virat Kohli and were 71-6 at the time of writing, with KS Bharat on 10 and Axar Patel on a run. Having switched to round the wicket, Lyon has taken 2-19 so far, and Kuhnemann 3-13. Todd Murphy, the third spinner, has taken 1-5.
