Cummins takes five as Australia draw level with crushing win

Pat Cummins led from the front with a five-wicket haul as Australia flattened India in Adelaide to level the series 1-1 with a 10-wicket win.

India began the day 29 runs in arrears with five wickets to hand, but were certainly pushed back a bit almost immediately, first when Mitchell Starc had Rishabh Pant nicking a beauty of a delivery straight away to the second slip, and second when he led a maelstrom of shortballs against the Indians' tail. There Ashwin of course briefly turned the tables once, by capitalizing on how the ball pitched, but his task became something of a Glove It-Down-the-WicketKeeper affair soon again.

Nitish Reddy was then left to farm the strike with the tail for company and trickled along but it wasn't long when Cummins had Harshit Rana fending at an awkward short ball and ballooning it to the offside. With eight having fallen now, and the solitary Jasprit Bumrah for company, it was time that Reddy took a few chances; and one such slog over mid on off Boland had pushed India in the lead. He continued to hook Cummins for a six once again but the skipper had the last laugh. He pounded the short length again and had Reddy ramping it straight into the hands of the fly slip in place in the deep.

It gave Cummins his 12th five-wicket haul in Tests and put his team on the brink of leveling the series. Mohammad Siraj, welcomed by loud boos across the ground after his war of words with Travis Head, was put down first ball by Alex Carey. But that luck did not last long as he ended up slogging Boland and skying a catch to Head at midwicket leaving Australia a target of just 19.

The openers sent the target packing without a hitch as Australia sealed day-night Tests supremacy as they won their 12th out of 13 matches.

Toss & Result: India elected to bat, Australia chose to bat.
Brief Scores: India 180 (Nitish Reddy 42; Mitchell Starc 6-48) & 175 (Nitish Reddy 42; Pat Cummins 5-57) lost to Australia 337 (Travis Head 140, Marnus Labuschagne 64; Jasprit Bumrah 4-59, Mohammad Siraj 4-98) & 19/0 by 10 wickets