Australia scored 255-4 on the opening day of the fourth Test against India on Thursday, with opener Usman Khawaja scoring the first century by an Australian batsman in the series.
At the conclusion of play, Khawaja and Cameron Green were both batting at 49, after Australia decided to bat in Ahmedabad’s largest cricket stadium.
After raising the second hundred of a low-scoring series with a boundary in the penultimate over of the day, Pakistan-born Khawaja leaped up in celebration.
The Australian opener, who has 257 runs in the series, is now leading the batting order despite India’s captain Rohit Sharma’s 120-run performance in game one.
Despite two wickets in the last session, Green continued to be Khawaja’s attacking partner in an unbroken 85-run combination that once again marked Australia’s supremacy.
Travis Head and Khawaja got off to a strong start and put up 61 runs together for the first wicket before India took two wickets in the first session.
After lunch, Khawaja and Smith, who was filling in as captain, worked hard to wear down the Indian bowlers on a pitch that looked good for batting.
Smith was out when Ravindra Jadeja’s left-arm spinner’s ball ricocheted off the ground and hit the batsman on the inside of the leg stumps.
Pace lead the way Shami’s first ball was wide, and Khawaja got a boundary right away.
In the first three Tests, the pitches were very slow, and India’s 400 in the first match was the highest score.
Head, who bats with his left hand, took charge and hit a bunch of fours, including three in one over from fast bowler Umesh Yadav.
Head got a break when wicketkeeper Srikar Bharat dropped a simple catch by Yadav when Head was on seven. Head added 25 more runs before Ravichandran Ashwin got rid of him.
Khawaja tried to make another partnership, but Shami got Marnus Labuschagne out for three with a ball that came in and hit the stumps.
Narendra Modi, the prime minister of India, and Anthony Albanese, the prime minister of Australia, were both there for the first hour of play at the stadium named after Modi, which can hold 132,000 people.
The two leaders were greeted by a big crowd before the focus turned to cricket. Smith won the toss and put out the same team that won their last game in Indore, which kept the series alive at 2-1.
India needs a win to win the series and make sure they’ll be in the World Test Championship final in June at London’s The Oval.
