New Delhi (Nilesh Tiwari): The Indian cricket team is again in a difficult position after the second day of the Boxing Day Test in Melbourne. Australia took five wickets for 164 runs in response to their 474-run first-innings score. They will have to show fight and another comeback, though, with guys like Rishabh Pant and Ravindra Jadeja at the crease at stumps with young players like Washington Sundar and Nitish Kumar Reddy still to come. Washington Sundar, the spin all-rounder who was at the post-press conference, is sure that the team is in a good frame of mind and is more than capable of a comeback to keep their perfect record at the MCG since 2012.
He had faith in the ability of the team to come back despite the challenging situations. Washington Sundar said there was a good vibe in the dressing room, and everybody was thinking about the game in terms of long-term goals. Sundar said that, in terms of changing the game, there was still plenty of time because there were three full days of play remaining. According to him, it was more about giving it a good fight and sticking in there till the end of the match.
With passing daylight hours, he saw things improved considerably. The emergence of the sun later in the day meant it definitely made a difference since initially it had started without sunshine at all. Once the sun came out, he opined the pitch began to play much better, by which batting became even much better. According to Sundar, the wicket would probably remain steady over the remaining days of the game, providing a decent chance for the batsmen. He said he was confident that the next few days would be ideal for scoring a lot of points.
India:
Rohit Sharma (captain), Jasprit Bumrah (vice-captain), Yashasvi Jaiswal, Abhimanyu Easwaran, ^Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli, Devdutt Padikkal, KL Rahul, Rishabh Pant (wicket-keeper), Sarfaraz Khan, Dhruv Jurel (wicket-keeper), Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Mohd Siraj.
Australia:
Pat Cummins (c), Sean Abbott, Scott Boland, Alex Carey, Travis Head (vc), Josh Inglis, Usman Khawaja, Sam Konstas, Marnus Labuschagne, Nathan Lyon, Mitchell Marsh, Jhye Richardson, Steve Smith (vc), Mitchell Starc, Beau Webster
