Cummins takes five to lead Australia to thumping victory

Pat Cummins celebrates a five-wicket haul • Getty Images

Adelaide, Australia, December 8:

Australia 337 (Head 140, Labuschagne 64, Bumrah 4-61, Siraj 4-98) and 19 for 0 beat India 180 (Reddy 42, Starc 6-48, Cummins 2-41) and 175 (Reddy 42, Cummins 5-57, Boland 3-51) by ten wickets.

Pat Cummins' five-wicket haul capped Australia's dominance in the pink-ball Test at the Adelaide Oval as they leveled the series on the third afternoon with a statement win. The end was nigh for India when Mitchell Starc struck in the first over of the day with a perfectly pitched delivery to have Rishabh Pant nicking behind for his overnight score of 28. India folded for 175, a little over an hour into the first session. Needing 19, Usman Khawaja and Nathan McSweeney knocked off the runs within four overs.

India were in danger of conceding an innings win when Cummins was banging one bouncer after another. R Ashwin, Harshit Rana and Nitish Kumar Reddy all fell to short balls from the Australia captain. Much to the delight of the Adelaide crowd, their hero Travis Head pulled off a tumbling catch to dismiss No. 11 Mohammed Siraj, who had become public enemy No. 1 after giving Head a send-off on day two.

Australia, though, didn't need Head with the bat in their second innings as Khawaja and McSweeney applied the finishing touches for them.

Australia's 295-run drubbing in Perth drew some hot takes, which surprised some of their players, but they produced a near-perfect response in Adelaide to achieve parity and set things up beautifully for the rest of the series.

Cummins, who didn't look sharp enough with the ball in the first Test, was back to his best in the second. After having hit the top of Rohit's off stump with the pink new ball under lights on Saturday, Cummins dragged his lengths further back with the older ball, which wasn't swinging or seaming as much under natural light. He had Ashwin gloving behind and Rana popping up a catch to gully with a nastier bouncer.

Reddy stood up to Cummins and hooked a throat-high lifter over square leg for six, despite two men out on the leg-side boundary. But when Cummins angled one across him from around the wicket next ball, Reddy ramped it straight to fine third.

Reddy finished with 42 off 47 balls - it was the third time in four innings that he had top-scored for India in his maiden Test series. The hosts ended up facing only 81 overs across both innings, which contributed to the shortest pink-ball Test in Australia and also the shortest between the two teams.

The Adelaide crowd of 33,184 had more reasons to cheer about when their adopted son McSweeney creamed a brace of fours in the slim chase and then when their favourite son Head bagged the Player-of-the-Match award.