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Home  » Cricket » Summer of 36 vs Summer of 42

Summer of 36 vs Summer of 42

By HARISH KOTIAN
December 20, 2020 09:07 IST
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Virat Kohli

IMAGE: Virat Kohli walks back after his dismissal to Pat Cummins in India's second innings on Day 3 of the first Test in Adelaide, December 19, 2020. Photograph: Daniel Kalisz/Getty Images
 

It was the summer of 42 revisited all over again as Virat Kohli and the Indian team crashed to the lowest score in Test cricket in 65 years.

India's 36 at the Adelaide Oval on December 19, 2020 is now the second lowest Test score after the 26 New Zealand scored against England at Eden Park in Auckland on March 28, 1955.

Josh Hazlewood (5-8) and Pat Cummins (4-21) turned the day-night, pink ball Test on its head in a devastating spell of pace bowling as Australia bounced back in stunning fashion after conceding a 53-run first innings lead.

Not one Indian batsman got into double figures -- only the second time that has happened to any team in a Test match.

36 is India's lowest in 544 Tests going back to 1932, worse than the previous low of 42 against England at Lords in 1974.

Sunil Gavaskar, who was part of that 1974 nightmare, recalled, 'In the same way as in 1974, overcast conditions at Lord's with the ball swinging around, none of us got out playing bad shots, we were all trapped lbw or caught behind.'

In that 1974 Test at Lord's, Chris Old (4-67) and Mike Hendrick (3-46) ripped apart the Indian batting line-up after they were asked to follow on.

Gavaskar, Farokh Engineer, Ajit Wadekar, Gundappa Viswanath, Brijesh Patel all fell for single digit scores with Eknath Solkar (18) the only Indian to score in double digits.

A look at the scorecards of India's two worse batting displays in Test cricket:

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HARISH KOTIAN / Rediff.com

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