ADELAIDE: Fear of the twilight hour is real in day-night Tests. As the shadows lengthened across the Adelaide Oval and the giant light-emitting diodes woke up from their slumber, Australia’s top order — caught in the middle at the wrong time — would have known it was time for the new pink ball to begin hunting for prey. Instead, in the eerie floodlit halo, it was India’s bowlers who had a nerve-jangling time trying to control the beast.
At times the bowlers were magnificent, at other times overwhelmed by the ball’s tendency to acquire a mind of its own. Perhaps they were guilty of not pitching it up often. By stumps, Marnus Labuschagne and Nathan McSweeney had done a splendid job of surviving the nightmare period to put Australia on a better footing at 86/1, having restricted India to 180 in the first innings.
