Adelaide
Australian captain Tim Paine said after playing a fifties innings against India’s dangerous bowling attack in the first day-night Test here on Friday, it was ‘not easy’ to see the pink ball from afar in the milky light. Penn remained the top scorer with an unbeaten 73, despite his team being reduced to 191 in the first innings on the second day of the match at Adelaide Oval.

Penn said, “Yes, definitely the level of fast bowling is excellent. The pink ball is also probably a reason. It is not easy to adjust and play it and I can tell you that it is difficult for the player. The batting was not easy resulting in some batsmen taking a very cautious attitude. The Indian team, who were reduced to 244 in the first innings, increased their total to 62 runs by the end of the day’s play.

Penn admitted that this was not his team’s best performance. He said, ‘Yes, it is definitely not our best performance but the credit goes to him. They (Indian bowlers) bowled really well, put us under pressure, we could not achieve the rhythm or make partnerships, today we could not do it. But our top order has done a good job for us so far.

Senior off spinner Ravichandran Ashwin (4/55) took four wickets while fast bowler Jasprit Bumrah took two wickets. Penn said Australia would definitely try to make a comeback due to their bowling attack. “Finally, we have to chase the target, we know it will be challenging, our bowling is fantastic, anything can happen tomorrow,” he said.

Penn said, “We know our fast bowling attack and Nathan Lyon’s opening 10 overs on the first day created a lot of opportunities.” We can take wickets fast and certainly we will try to do the same tomorrow, keeping the scoreboard under control. We hope that we will be able to keep the score as low as possible. ‘