IND-U19 vs AUS-U19, 2nd Youth Test — Day 1 Stumps: Australia U19 174, India U19 38/2, trail by 136

Some days in a Test are about one bowler refusing to let the game get away from him. Tanmay Baloda's day in Ahmedabad was that kind. He bowled 25 overs, 11 of them maidens, and gave away 32 runs. Six Australian batters walked back to him. On a first day when India had chosen to bowl, he turned that decision into a scoreboard that read 174 all out before the evening was out.

It was not a day of uninterrupted Indian control. Australia had been 65 for 6 in the 21st over, and for the next 40 overs Charlie Henderson and Jacob Pietz showed them a different way to play. Then Baloda came back, the last four wickets went for 39, and India's openers were left with 15 awkward overs before stumps. They lost both of them. At 38 for 2, India trail by 136. The visitors, 1-0 down after losing the first Youth Test by an innings, have at least made this one a match.

The early overs belonged to India's new-ball pair and their wicketkeeper. Priyanshu Singh removed captain Matthew Lough in the second over, and Mohit Ulva had Hayden Barbulovic caught behind for 8 at 28 for 2. Neel Patel batted 58 balls for 31, the most fluent innings of Australia's day, before Baloda had him stumped. Eli Brain was lbw for 4 off 31 balls. Blake Cattle and Zed Hollick were both caught behind, Cattle off Aayan Akram and Hollick off Baloda. In less than four overs, from the 17th to the 21st, Australia lost four wickets for 15 runs and went from 50 for 2 to 65 for 6. The young side was in danger of being bowled out before tea.

What followed was a passage of play that does not show up in highlights. Henderson, Australia's wicketkeeper, and Pietz added 70 for the seventh wicket in just over 40 overs. Henderson made 37 from 147 balls and Pietz 26 from 107. Between them they faced 254 deliveries and hit nine fours. It was batting of the old, unfashionable kind: leave, block, wait for the bad ball. In a youth Test in Ahmedabad, it was also the right kind. Baloda eventually bowled Pietz at 135 in the 61st over, and three overs later Henderson was caught by Manal Chauhan off Akram with the score on 139.

Thomas Vaseo (14) and Patrick Sullivan (20 off 31, including a six) added a little more. Baloda took both of them, Vaseo caught and bowled and Sullivan stumped, and Australia were all out for 174 in 73 overs.

Baloda's figures are worth reading slowly. Six for 32 from 25 overs is an economy rate of 1.28. Eleven maidens means that for almost half his overs, Australia's batters had nothing to show at all. Two of his six were stumpings by Abhipray Biswas, which tells you something about the length and flight he was bowling and the batters' need to get out of their crease to find runs.

Biswas had a day to remember behind the stumps as well: three catches and two stumpings, five dismissals in the innings. The rest of the attack held up the other end. Yashbardhan Chauhan, the captain, bowled 10 overs for 19, Manal Chauhan five for 7, and Priyanshu Singh nine for 21 with the early wicket of Lough. Akram was the most expensive at 45 from 11 overs, but he took the two wickets of Cattle and Henderson. Australia scored at 2.38 an over through the innings.

For India's openers, the final 15 overs were a test of a different sort. Lakshya Raichandani, who made 207 in the Youth Test at Galle in July, faced 22 balls for one run before Vaseo found his edge and Henderson took the catch at 8 for 1. Sagar Virk looked the more comfortable, with three fours in 16 from 29, until Spencer Green trapped him lbw at 28 for 2. Kushagra Ojha (13 not out from 28) and Chauhan, who came in at number four, saw India to stumps at 38 for 2.

Australia's new-ball bowlers gave very little away. Vaseo bowled five overs for 8 and Sullivan four for 3, with two maidens each. If India's bowlers set the tone of the match in the morning, Australia's showed in the evening that they understood it too.

Read the scorecard and it describes a surface where scoring was hard work. Australia scored at under two and a half an over, India at 2.53 in the evening, and 29 of the 88 overs bowled in the day were maidens. Baloda's two stumpings and his 11 maidens suggest the slower bowling found something to work with. Henderson and Pietz showed that survival was possible; nobody on either side showed that fast scoring was.

We did not publish a preview for this Youth Test, so there is no prediction to grade. We will follow it with a stumps report each day until the result.

India start Day 2 on 38 for 2, 136 behind, with Ojha and Chauhan at the crease and eight wickets in hand. If they can get past Australia's total with wickets to spare, they will be in a position to push for a 2-0 series result over the remaining days. For Australia, the morning session is the match: Vaseo and Sullivan have shown they can keep runs down, and another two or three early wickets would turn 174 from a modest total into a competitive one.