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After copping criticism for his audacious and irresponsible shot-selection in the first innings of the Boxing Day Test against Australia, India’s wicketkeeper-batter Rishabh Pant seemed to have buckled down in the second innings during his partnership with opener Yashasvi Jaiswal. But after doing all the hard work, Pant gave it away once again to leave India in trouble.
The pair had added 88 runs for the fourth-wicket after India’s batting cream of Rohit Sharma (9), KL Rahul (0) and Virat Kohli (5) had failed once again.
It forced Pat Cummins to make a bowling change, and he opted for the part-time spin of Travis Head. While it did the trick for Australia, Pant went for the bait and got out while trying to hit big.
Bowled slightly short by Head, Pant felt the ball pitched short enough to play the pull shot and as a result failed to place his shot where he wanted, hitting it wide of long-on where Mitchell Marsh got under the ball to catch it.
It ended Pant’s knock of 30 runs that he had earned off 104 balls to keep the Australians at bay, until he couldn’t resist going after the part-timer.
The left-handed batter has had a sorry series, aggregating just 154 runs so far in 7 innings for an average of 22.00.
The wicket led to a mini collapse, as Ravindra Jadeja was dismissed by Scott Boland for 2 and first-innings centurion Nitish Reddy fell to Nathan Lyon for 1.
From 121 for 3, India slipped to 130 for 6 while chasing a daunting target of 340.
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