Score line: -
India 311-5 (85.0 overs, Sachin Tendulkar 88 (111 Balls), Mitchell Johnson 3-70)
Report Sheet of the Day: - Australia 38 % - India 62 %
Match-Report:-
COMMIT THE ARC, COMMIT THE CHAMPION!
I won’t say that because Sachin Tendulkar officially became the leading run-scorer in world-cricket, I won’t say that because Tendulkar scored an almost flawless innings (until he played that waft in Siddle’s bowling and was caught), I will say that because he rounded off a “sandwich”-style day for India, and thwarted the Aussies just when things were beginning to fall apart for the Indians. A day, when an almost tricky collapse was sandwiched by two sessions of superb batting.
A strange silence followed both the captains when they walked out at the toss. It has been pretty amusing to hear a lot of statements about aggression and team planning, and obviously a lot of chest-thumping from both teams about “who won the most points at Bangalore”. For the record that matters, Stuart Clark sat out with an elbow injury, and Anil Kumble finally sat out-after a drama equal to a traditional Hindi movie. On a surprisingly dry surface, India’s captain-in-waiting MS Dhoni won a crucial toss, and batted first.
When Brett Lee started with the new red SG ball, two things became apparent-There wasn’t enough moisture left in the surface to make it move in the 1st hour, while the Indian openers (especially Gautam Gambhir) had learnt from their mistake of being crease bound against all bowlers-which they did at Bangalore. Lee ran in, pitched it at half-volley length around Gambhir’s front-pad, and Gambhir played a gorgeous straight-drive…the tone was set. Lee, somehow, just couldn’t get his rhythm going, with Gambhir immaculate with his footwork and actually taking the bulk of strike. Lee, somehow, likes to bowl at the right-handers at the start-especially so because that allows him to develop a nice shape of the ball going.
Peter Siddle, a young Victorian fast-medium bowler was given the new ball, and he immediately looked good. He looks a strongly built guy, consistently hitting the 140’s, and his stock ball is the away-swinger to the right-handers. He did try out a couple of in swingers to Virender Sehwag; hit Gambhir on the helmet with his first ball; bowled a beauty of a ball to Sehwag-but that was about it for Australia for that spell. The ball wasn’t moving too much sideways, and Sehwag-Gambhir duo went on a clinical rampage. India raced off-to a 50-run start, something these two openers have made a habit of, and immediately Ricky Ponting reverted to his usual ploy, sweepers on the off-side. What it did was to allow both openers to run singles at ease-tap the ball on both sides of the wicket and milk the bowling. But as Ricky Ponting often says (like a holy cow)-He was trying to be aggressive and take the game forward…so, we should just shut up & don’t question him.
Sehwag, though, has the amazing ability to give you an absolutely beautiful dream when he is going, and then just throw cold water on your face by getting out in an irritating way. He did it again, flicking a pretty innocuous (and harmless) delivery from Johnson straight to Brad Haddin behind the wicket. (1-70)
Rahul Dravid came in, and again looked set to play a fluid innings. He middle a few, hit a glorious straight-drive off Johnson; he looked like a player who was trying extra hard to score a “big one”. Mohali has traditionally been the citadel of the Indian batsmen-apart from Gautam Gambhir, India’s other top 5-batsmen have done reasonably well here with each one of them having a 50+ batting average here. Dravid (and Gambhir as well) seemed to have found an antidote for Australia’s new style “aggressive” approach; Dravid got out against the run of play. Trying to cut a good-length ball from Lee, which was also not wide enough to cut, he dragged the ball from outside his off-stump, and hitting his leg-stump. He tried to cut the ball on the front-foot, instead of playing it conventionally from the back-and across-movement (far more efficient than this modern way)…and started off a series of Brain-Explosions for India. (2-146)
Two balls later; Gambhir played at another harmless ball-Johnson bowled a straight ball which just moved a shade away (maybe from a crack), Gambhir nicked it (inexcusable after you have played 140-odd balls) and wasted a fantastic opportunity to score his first Test-hundred against Australia. (3-146)
Now it was trouble for the Indians; Laxman & Tendulkar at the crease, both new against a reared up Lee & Johnson. VVS Laxman came in and immediately was away with a crisp shot for 2. All thought “It’s VVS now, one more special hundred against Australia.” Sachin Tendulkar at the other end was looking pleasingly aggressive. But a Laxman classic was denied again-again a pretty harmless ball, outside leg-stump and going straight, Laxman flicked it too fine and was well caught by Haddin. Johnson ecstatic for one more bonus. (4-163)
Sachin was watching at the other end with an almost bemused look. He looked woken up-ready for a match-turning innings…finally he got Sourav Ganguly (who again took his own time to arrive and then get settled to irritate more Aussie columnists). The master nodded in appreciation, and the repair work began. Few crisp shots were hit to the boundary, and he finally crossed the milestone every Indian craved him for-and became the highest run-scorer of all time surpassing another genius-Brian Lara. All the Australian player shook hands with honor-it was a beautiful moment of a fierce contest-A champion team saluting a champion. Wonderful gesture.
Sourav Ganguly at the other end was finally getting in his groove, almost without anybody’s notice. With Michael Clarke & Cameron White looking as harmless as Rahul Dravid’s off-spinners, both batsmen grew in confidence & brought India back on track. Slowly, they regained the lost momentum, & suddenly Australia looked clueless. The milestones came quickly. Meanwhile, India were 236/4 (65.0 overs) at drinks, and when actually the second new ball was taken, they (read Tendulkar) had the game in command. Sachin meanwhile seemed anxious to get to a hundred and became surprisingly static with his footwork against Siddle (who again bowled a lion-hearted spell). He stayed rooted to the crease and wafted to a nice away-seaming ball from Siddle, and the edge was again efficiently caught by Hayden at first slip. (5-305)
MS Dhoni did surprise a few by sending Ishant Sharma to block Lee & Siddle. He did it well, and Sourav Ganguly-by remaining not out-has made sure that India hold all the aces into Day-2.
In the end…India just inching ahead of Australia by having a stroke player like Ganguly not out. India are by no means safe. Dhoni will have to play an innings of substance to stretch India’s total to 450 or more. A few observations:
India have the advantage that the ball is new and it won’t reverse until maybe lunch. If Ishant & Ganguly can stay till then, Australia might just be chasing leather.
Australia’s over-rate continues to be pathetic, which forces them to bowl Clarke & White for much longer than they deserve to. India will look to capitalize when that happens.
Brett Lee remains an enigma; he seems to try hard enough, but just doesn’t look close enough to getting a wicket-India would be wary of a hostile burst from him. He is due for it.
Mitchell Johnson continues to get gifts from the Indians. To be honest, he is a bowler who is a lot more dangerous to left-handers than right-handers. He struggles to attack stumps to right-handers and will consider himself extremely lucky to end up with 3-wickets including two right-handers. Ganguly-a left hander-should be wary of him though, while Peter Siddle will be the one to watch out for the right-handers.
Pitch: - An unusually dry surface. It hasn’t been rolled much, with not enough water given. There is very little or no sideways movement for the fast bowlers, which means the role of Indian spinners, becomes doubly crucial. The out-field is very green including the side pitches, so reverse swing isn’t as big a factor as it was at Bangalore. Zaheer Khan & Ishant Sharma have their work cut out. There is a bright sun-shine for a full day which means this pitch won’t get any better for batting. And Australia’s thin bowling means that they will need a lot of reverse-swing with uneven bounce to really trouble India in the 3rd innings-unless somebody bowls a dream spell. This pitch is the ideal one for Matthew Hayden (My prediction: he will score 40+ runs when Australia bat.)…will all these happen? We will know soon.
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