Australia 156/4 at stumps on Day 1, lead India by 47 runs
Indore, Mar 1: Indian batters' longstanding struggles against spin were thoroughly exposed before Australia applied themselves on a rank turner to take control of the third Test on a frantic opening day of the match here on Wednesday.
Left-arm spinner Matthew Kuhnemman (5/16) picked up his maiden five-wicket haul as Australia skittled India out for a paltry 109 shortly after lunch on day one. Virat Kohli top-scored for India with 22 off 52 balls.
Trailing 0-2 in the series, Australia came out with a strong resolve and purpose to end the day at 156 for four, taking a 47-run lead.
Ravindra Jadeja (4/63) took all four wickets for India including that of stand-in captain Steve Smith (26 off 38) before close of play.
Usman Khawaja (60 off 147) was the standout performer for Australia as he tackled the skill-full Jadeja and R Ashwin with a straight bat and soft hands.
Marnus Labuschagne (31 off 91 balls), who was bowled off a no ball early in his innings, rode on his luck to share a 96-run stand with Khawaja, the highest partnership of the series for the visitors.
Though the usually accurate Indian spinners were not relentless with their lines and lengths, Khawaja and Labuschagne rectified the "sweeping" mistakes they made in Delhi by playing straight and trusting their defense.
When India were batting, the pitch seemed unplayable but Khawaja and Co. showed the way to the home team.
Khawaja's gritty knock also had a couple of drives on the off-side. He was also not shy of playing the reverse sweep but mostly played straight.
The southpaw hardly put a foot wrong in his crafty knock but when he did, he had to pay for it. In the 43rd over of the innings, Khawaja went for the sweep from around the off-stump off Jadeja and ended up giving a catch at deep midwicket.
Like Nagpur and Delhi, the game is set for another three-day finish and a 100-run lead on this surface will be worth gold.
India were also guilty of bowling four no-balls.
Earlier, having lost seven of the batters by the end of the opening session, India could add only 25 more runs to their total with Kuhnemann ending with career-best figures in first-class cricket.
If it wasn't for Umesh Yadav's 17 off 13 balls, India would have struggled to get past the 100-run mark.
The only wicket that came India's way in the afternoon session was of Travis Head (9), who missed a straight ball from Jadeja to be adjudged lbw.
It was a sign of desperation that India exhausted two of their three views in the first 10 overs. Labuschagne got a second life when India did not review a lbw call off Ashwin.
The great Matthew Hayden on air called the the black soil surface at the Holkar Stadium a day-three pitch and it sure behaved like one.
Three India batters including skipper Rohit Sharma (12), Jadeja (4) and Shreyas Iyer (0) perished while trying to attack.
Kohli looked assured in the middle before being trapped lbw by Todd Murphy towards the end of the session.
Winning the toss for the first time in the series, India expectedly decided to bat first. Shubman Gill replaced an out-of-form K L Rahul in the playing eleven while Umesh Yadav was brought in for the rested Mohammad Shami.
Having regained match fitness, both Mitchell Starc and Cameron Green made Australia's playing eleven.
Starc's first over to Rohit was among the highlights of the morning session. Before the spinners ran through the Indian batting, Starc got the ball to swing giving the India skipper a tough time.
Rohit got a faint outside edge on the very first ball he faced but Australia did not take a review. Three balls later, Starc got the ball to swing back in and it flicked Rohit's pads. Ball tracking showed the ball would have hit the off stump but Australia did not take the review.
Spin was introduced in the sixth over and Kuhnemman got the ball to turn sharply. In the last ball of the over, Rohit stepped out to play across the line and got beaten in the flight and Alex Carey made a clean stumping.
Kuhnemann had Gill caught at first slip with the opener getting a thick outside edge while offering a forward defence.
Cheteshwar Pujara's stay lasted only four balls as Lyon got one to turn massively from wide off stump that crashed into the middle stump. The ball kept a tad low as well and Pujara was found wanting on the back foot.
When Shreyas Iyer played an attempted cut on to his stumps, India had lost half their side.
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Single higher education regulator bill tabled in LS; Oppn flags ‘centralisation,' JPC likely
New Delhi: A bill to set up a 13-member body to regulate institutions of higher education was introduced in the Lok Sabha on Monday.
Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan introduced the Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan Bill, which seeks to establish an overarching higher education commission along with three councils for regulation, accreditation, and ensuring academic standards for universities and higher education institutions in India.
Meanwhile, the move drew strong opposition, with members warning that it could weaken institutional autonomy and result in excessive centralisation of higher education in India.
The Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan Bill, 2025, earlier known as the Higher Education Council of India (HECI) Bill, has been introduced in line with the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020.
The proposed legislation seeks to merge three existing regulatory bodies, the University Grants Commission (UGC), the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), and the National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE), into a single unified body called the Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan.
At present, the UGC regulates non-technical higher education institutions, the AICTE oversees technical education, and the NCTE governs teacher education in India.
Under the proposed framework, the new commission will function through three separate councils responsible for regulation, accreditation, and the maintenance of academic standards across universities and higher education institutions in the country.
According to the Bill, the present challenges faced by higher educational institutions due to the multiplicity of regulators having non-harmonised regulatory approval protocols will be done away with.
The higher education commission, which will be headed by a chairperson appointed by the President of India, will cover all central universities and colleges under it, institutes of national importance functioning under the administrative purview of the Ministry of Education, including IITs, NITs, IISc, IISERs, IIMs, and IIITs.
At present, IITs and IIMs are not regulated by the University Grants Commission (UGC).
Government to refer bill to JPC; Oppn slams it
The government has expressed its willingness to refer it to a joint committee after several members of the Lok Sabha expressed strong opposition to the Bill, stating that they were not given time to study its provisions.
Responding to the opposition, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju said the government intends to refer the Bill to a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) for detailed examination.
Congress Lok Sabha MP Manish Tewari warned that the Bill could result in “excessive centralisation” of higher education. He argued that the proposed law violates the constitutional division of legislative powers between the Union and the states.
According to him, the Bill goes beyond setting academic standards and intrudes into areas such as administration, affiliation, and the establishment and closure of university campuses. These matters, he said, fall under Entry 25 of the Concurrent List and Entry 32 of the State List, which cover the incorporation and regulation of state universities.
Tewari further stated that the Bill suffers from “excessive delegation of legislative power” to the proposed commission. He pointed out that crucial aspects such as accreditation frameworks, degree-granting powers, penalties, institutional autonomy, and even the supersession of institutions are left to be decided through rules, regulations, and executive directions. He argued that this amounts to a violation of established constitutional principles governing delegated legislation.
Under the Bill, the regulatory council will have the power to impose heavy penalties on higher education institutions for violating provisions of the Act or related rules. Penalties range from ₹10 lakh to ₹75 lakh for repeated violations, while establishing an institution without approval from the commission or the state government could attract a fine of up to ₹2 crore.
Concerns were also raised by members from southern states over the Hindi nomenclature of the Bill. N.K. Premachandran, an MP from the Revolutionary Socialist Party representing Kollam in Kerala, said even the name of the Bill was difficult to pronounce.
He pointed out that under Article 348 of the Constitution, the text of any Bill introduced in Parliament must be in English unless Parliament decides otherwise.
DMK MP T.M. Selvaganapathy also criticised the government for naming laws and schemes only in Hindi. He said the Constitution clearly mandates that the nomenclature of a Bill should be in English so that citizens across the country can understand its intent.
Congress MP S. Jothimani from Tamil Nadu’s Karur constituency described the Bill as another attempt to impose Hindi and termed it “an attack on federalism.”
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