Brisbane [Australia]: In a rain-curtailed session, Australian skipper Pat Cummins increased India's woes with Rishabh Pant's dismissal during the third day of the third Border-Gavaskar Trophy Test on Monday.
At the stroke of Tea, India managed to crawl its way to 48/4, trailing by 397 runs, with KL Rahul and skipper Rohit Sharma unbeaten with scores of 30(52) and 0(1), respectively.
The consistent rain in Brisbane didn't help India one bit. The constant interference of the weather gods made the passage of play short, and at that moment, Rishabh Pant lost his wicket to Australian skipper Pat Cummins.
While the break allowed Australian pacers to stay fresh, the Indian batters struggled to find their rhythm due to the limited time at the crease.
Pant returned to The Gabba three years after bringing down the walls of Australia's fortress. India's situation was not good right from the beginning, and it became more difficult after Virat Kohli's bat was silenced by Josh Hazlewood.
With India in dire need of a similar act of heroism from Pant, the southpaw showed signs of promise by picking up three runs on his first deliver of the match.
Rain interrupted the session again, but Pant remained consistent in his approach of picking up runs on loose deliveries that fell in his hitting arc.
As Pant and Rahul started to gain momentum with the odds stacked against them, rain once again came in to take away all of it. The duo returned once the rain let off.
Rahul arguably played the shot of the day with a cover drive straight out of the cricket textbooks off Cummins. With the scoreboard regularly ticking and the partnership becoming a threat to the Australians, Cummins upped the ante to extend the dominance exuded by the hosts.
The Australian skipper had worked out his angles and pitched the delivery beautifully to draw Pant (9) out. He nipped the ball away from Pant enough to catch the outside edge straight through to Carey.
Rahul tried to take the fight back by reeling off a four off Mitchell Starc, which turned out to be the final action in the second session.
Earlier in the day, in a start-stop session utterly dominated by Australia, Indian players were once again asked to reflect on their flaws as the impending doom of defeat started to linger in Brisbane.
It was A-Lister Jasprit Bumrah who paved the way for India by removing Mitchell Starc in the opening hour. Starc looked deadly the moment he smoked the ball into the stand with a picture-perfect slog-sweep off Ravindra Jadeja.
Bumrah sensed the threat radiating from the Starc and forced out an edge from the southpaw in the next over. Starc's feet were stuck on the ground as he attempted to push the ball away.
A loose waft from the Australian was enough to pick up a nick as the ball travelled into the safe gloves of Rishabh Pant.
With Alex Carey on the field, Nathan Lyon resisted the temptation to go after the Indian attack, as rain made its presence felt at irregular intervals.
With the tempo of the day set, Mohammed Siraj broke the shackles and managed to breach Lyon's defence to hit the middle stump.
With just a wicket left, Carey decided to charge at Akash Deep but ended up mistiming his shot, forcing Australia to wrap up its inning on 445.
In reply, Indian batters continued to live through the nightmares inflicted in Adelaide, with Starc being the driving force of the Australian pace attack.
His first victim of the day was Yashasvi Jaiswal, a player he has developed a rivalry with since the Perth Test. The young Indian southpaw managed to avoid a golden duck by edging the ball to the boundary, but Starc retaliated by swinging the ball and using the scrambled seam delivery to its effective use.
He picked up Jaiswal's wicket on his second ball of the match after the Indian chipped it away straight into Mitchell Marsh's hands. Shubman Gill (1) was next to return cheaply after he edged it away to Marsh, who took a flight and snaffled it with both hands.
Virat Kohli (3) soon joined the duo's company after being tempted by Hazlewood to chase the outside off delivery and edge it away towards the wicketkeeper.
Brief Score: Australia 445 (Travis Head 152, Steven Smith 151; Jasprit Bumrah 6-76) vs India 48/4 (KL Rahul 30*; Mitchell Starc 2-24). (ANI)