The kids are all right.
Nineteen-year-old Sam Konstas laid down a sausage-fingered gauntlet for Australia to start this match. Twenty-three-year-old Yashasvi Jaiswal picked it up for India, and when it was jolted out of his hands, up stepped 21-year-old tyro Nitish Kumar Reddy on Saturday to claim it back.
Reddy’s maiden Test century in just his fourth match was faultless in technique and temperament until its dramatic denouement.
Nitish Kumar Reddy and Washington Sundar embrace.Credit: Getty Images
At 97, he lost Washington Sundar, his sidekick in a long, defiant eighth-wicket partnership. Fearing to be stranded, he played an ungainly and uncharacteristic hoick at Scott Boland, ran two, but lost the strike and banged his helmet in self-reproach, and again when Jasprit Bumrah fell three balls later.
On bended knee: Reddy scored a ton for the ages at the MCG.Credit: Getty Images
But India’s No.11cast villain Mohammed Siraj survived until Reddy could play one more sumptuous drive to reach his hundred.
As he went down on one knee, then rose again to make his euphoric salute, all at the MCG gave him his due – the crowd thunderously, the Australian players with outstretched hands, and his father on the fence with a grin that 10 ducks could not wipe off. Everything scales up when Australia play India, including the fairytales.
The most probable, though far from certain, outcome of Reddy’s masterpiece of counter-resistance is a draw here and a winner-take-all showdown in Sydney next week. Again, bless this series for its full complement of five matches. It’s going to need them all.
This fare is going down well. The MCC had budgeted for 250,000 for this match. Adding another 85,000-plus on Saturday, they’ve surpassed that – and there are two days to go.
Salute Reddy, but don’t overlook his girl Friday, Washington. Far from a tail, they are a tale. Reddy and Washington belong to something of an Indian tradition, bowlers who bat competently and thwart opponents on the cusp. India are not out until they are all out.
This faculty won them their last series in Australia when Washington memorably stood up at the Gabba. In India last year, Axar Patel performed a similar pinch-hitting role throughout four Tests.
At Nos.7 and eight in the team, it is open to debate whether Reddy and Washington are playing this match as all-rounders or batsmen. Washington bowled sparingly in Australia’s first innings and Reddy barely at all.
Despite his consistent runs in this series, Reddy’s place has been called into question because he has been no more than a spare part of a bowler – taking three wickets in four matches. But as a batting extra, his consistent contribution has been vital, covering up the failings of his elders and more notables higher up the order. Now it had its highest flowering. So it was that India were able to pay Peter without robbing Paul.
Reddy, like Washington, started out as a prolific junior batsman, making quadruple and triple centuries in the under-16s. In a not uncommon Indian parable, he put not only all his eggs in the cricket basket, but his family’s as well. Now they’re hatching handsomely.
Reddy’s innings was remarkable for its flawlessness. He reacted to each ball he faced as if pre-programmed with the right shot played the right way. His driving would have impressed Oscar Piastri, who was watching on. Big shots were always not on offer, but gaps always were, and he and Washington dabbed profitably.
There was nothing rough and ready about Reddy. No flights of fancy over slips, no heaves across the line, just batsmanship 1.0. His innings was, as the scorecard suggests, a classic.
Not for the first time, Australia had cause to look askance at a Washington alliance. They knew already that he was not easily budged.
The lanky 25-year-old was the ideal foil to Reddy. It took him 103 balls to hit his first four, and he needed nearly as many balls to make 50 as Reddy needed for a hundred. But throughout their stand, he looked no more likely to get out than his partner. His innings also was as the scorecard says, a study in understudy. It took the first ball Nathan Lyon caused to grip and spin to finally defeat him.
The pitch helped, which is to say it did damn all. Mild weather since Boxing Day’s scorcher means it has not broken up as might have been expected. On this third day, by one measure it was more friendly to batsmen than any other day of the series.
On it, the new ball was no more threatening than the old. It came so nicely onto the bat that unlike other days in this series, the Indians were concerned less with keeping it out and more with where they might send it. For hours, Australia’s likeliest source of a wicket was India’s regular confusion about which runs to take and which to leave.
In the first two sessions, Australia took only one wicket. The other fell, literally, as Rishabh Pant’s tumbling scoop somehow ended up in the hands of the waiting third man. There was nearly another by accident when Washington’s attempted leg glance from Mitch Starc somehow flew past leg stump to a nonplussed Steve Smith at second slip.
Australia did not drop their bundle. But in due course, bowling legs grew heavy, pace fell away, no balls popped up and a little sloppiness developed in the field. This is not nit-picking; it’s what happens to teams kept long on their feet.
But Australia are well-practised at waiting out an opponent. As so often happens, one wicket brought another, giving the day its suspenseful climax. And still there are two to play. For fans of Test cricket, this puts them at one with Reddy, Jaiswal, Konstas et al, kids in a lolly shop.
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