Axar-Ashwin rearguard keeps India in the game

In the most absorbing day of cricket in this series, worthy of recent Test clashes between these sides, Australia sauntered into the ascendancy, had their advantage wrested away by an exceptional Indian rearguard led by Axar Patel before restoring it somewhat through some late-evening batting enterprise. The second day of the Delhi Test, reduced to a second-innings shootout, ended with the visitors leading by 62 after Nathan Lyon, Virat Kohli, Axar Patel, R. Ashwin and Travis Head played defining roles through the course of the day.

Australia will have reason to believe they should have disappeared from India’s view after a spectacular spell in the morning from Nathan Lyon that read 9-1-21-4. There was uncertainty at the start of the day’s play whether the visitors’ first-innings score of 263 would prove to be enough but the off-spinner provided a resounding answer to those doubts when he had India tottering at 66/4, taking each of the four wickets to fall.