Cricket News: Australia vs India, 4th Test Match Analysis Reports & Updates

Cricket News: Australia vs India, 4th Test Match Analysis Reports & Updates

AUS 311/6 (86)  CRR: 3.62
Day 1: Stumps

Sam Constas had to face the toughest test in cricket at this time in the first 18 balls of his Test career. The bowler was Jasprit Bumrah, the youngest opener in Australia's 147-year-old Test history. In those 18 balls, the 19-year-old Constas was put to the test by the Indian pacer, giving away just 2 runs.

However, everything changed in Bumrah's fourth over. Jasprit Bumrah tried to scoop in the second over (the third of the match) but failed to hit. On the contrary, he raised the question of whether he was 'stubborn' to try to play such a shot at the beginning of the first day of the Test match. Constas answered the question in the seventh over of the match. Bumrah scooped the first ball and cleared the boundary over the keeper's head. It didn't have to be a six. He reverse scooped the next ball and hit a six. After passing the 18-ball Bumrah test, Constas now started testing Bumrah in reverse. The run came in that over. This is only the third time in his Test career that Jasprit Bumrah has given away 14 or more runs in an over. He also had the experience of hitting his first six in his last 4483 balls in Tests.
18
Sam Constas gifted Jasprit Bumrah the most expensive over in Tests.

After two overs, he surpassed that and gave Jasprit Bumrah the Constas record. This time, he took 18 runs with 1 six and 2 fours. Jasprit Bumrah has never given away so many runs in an over in his 44 Test career. Before today, Bumrah had given away the maximum of 16 runs in an over twice in Tests. The first time was in 2020, when Nathan Lyon and Hush Hazlewood did it together in Melbourne. The next 16-run over was in February this year. England's Jack Crawley took those 16 runs with four fours in Visakhapatnam.

Constas, who gave Jasprit Bumrah a record, scored a fifty in 52 balls. He returned to the bowling of Ravindra Jadeja with 60 runs in 65 balls. Constas also got another record on debut. Constas' strike rate in this innings is 92.30. The record for the highest strike rate by a number one batsman in the first innings of a Test debut.

92.30
Constas' strike rate. The highest by a number one batsman in the first innings of a Test debut.

Constas broke the record of an Indian to achieve this record against India. In 2018, when he came out to bat first against the West Indies in Rajkot, Prithvi Shaw's strike rate was 87.01 in his innings of 134 runs from 154 balls.

If you take not only the number one batsman but also the two openers, Constas is in third place. However, none of the two players above him got a fifty. England's Mark Stoneman scored 8 runs off 6 balls (strike rate 133.33) against West Indies at Edgbaston in 2017. Bangladesh's Shamsur Rahman scored 33 runs off 34 balls (strike rate 97.05) against Sri Lanka at Mirpur in 2014