The fourth Test match between India and Australia saw the visitors field one of the most inexperienced bowling attacks in their history as the combined experience of all five bowlers was 4 Test matches and included two debutants.
While Australia may have their nose slightly in front at the end of the first day's play, India's young and inexperienced attack made a good impression, that too after yet another injury concern which saw Navdeep Saini hobbling out of the field after bowling just 7 overs.
INDIA vs AUSTRALIA - 4th TEST, DAY 1 - Highlights
Mohammed Siraj sent back David Warner early, while Shardul Thakur struck with his first delivery to dismiss Marcus Harris. T Natarajan picked up the wickets of centurion Marnus Labuschagne and the dangerous Matthew Wade while Washington Sundar picked up the prized scalp of Steve Smith.
Australia ended the day on 274/5 with skipper Tim Paine and Cameron Green sharing an unbeaten partnership that threatens to put the hosts in command of the match.
India will rue the dropped chance of Labuschagne when he was batting on 37 but otherwise it was a day when the young bowlers showed a lot of fight. Speaking about the performance of the bowlers and specially about left armer Natarajan, former India Test opener and wicket-keeper batsman Deep Dasgupta lauded the gallant effort by the youngsters.
{{/usCountry}}India will rue the dropped chance of Labuschagne when he was batting on 37 but otherwise it was a day when the young bowlers showed a lot of fight. Speaking about the performance of the bowlers and specially about left armer Natarajan, former India Test opener and wicket-keeper batsman Deep Dasgupta lauded the gallant effort by the youngsters.
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"With Natarajan, the only issue is because he is not that quick. He is a medium pacer, a little better than medium pace and he generally doesn't swing the ball back into the left-hander that much. Becomes a little one-dimensional kind of bowler," Deep Dasgupta told Sports Today, according to an article in India Today.
"And obviously, he doesn't have the experience of bowling with the red-ball, which also kind of showed in his bowling. In terms of heart, you can't question the heart the Indian bowlers have shown," Dasgupta added.
India would hope its bowlers can break the partnership between Green and Paine early on Saturday and dismiss the tail early, which would its experienced batting line-up to come up with a good reply on a pitch that looks good for batting.