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October
10, 2008
 India's
aggressive openers Virender Sehwag and Gautam Gambhir lifted
the spirits of the dressing room with a perfect start after
the Aussies had piled up 430. The second day's play saw the
Kumble led team extremely frustrated and paved way for an
ordinary fielding performance. Michael Hussey took full toll
of that to not only score a century but also to take his team
to a secure looking 430. Hussey top scored with 146 and was
the last man out. Sehwag and Gambhir then batted with a lot of
self belief to take India to 68 for no loss in a little over
18 overs before a sudden spell of rain ended the day's play.
The contest was very even when play started
this morning and it went into India's favour when Ishant
Sharma beat Shane Watson with pace and movement to reduce the
visitors to 259 for 5. Next man in, Brad Haddin struggled
against Ishant as well but was fortunate enough to survive his
spell and later on provided capable support to Mike
Hussey. The two spinners Anil Kumble and
Harbhajan Singh were too easy to negotiate and by lunch, there
was no further loss at all for Australia, who went to lunch at
333 for 5. Hussey after lunch got his 9th Test hundred and
Haddin appeared to be solid at the other end. But out of
nowhere, Ishant Sharma decided to bowl a slower delivery which
caught Haddin napping as he was too early in his attempted
drive to end up scooping a catch at covers. Haddin made 33 in
110 balls with 4 fours while adding up 71 for the 6th wicket.
Ishant with a similar delivery foxed debutant Cameron White
(who made just 6) as well to bring in some huge relief for the
Indians.
Australia got reduced to 362 for 7 but the
next pair of Hussey and Lee battled through to get their team
well past 400. After Tea, Zaheer Khan produced some magic with
the old ball to take three wickets to restrict Aus to 430 in
149.5 overs. Zaheer got the ball to reverse swing a big way
which helped him clean up the stumps of Brett Lee and Mitchell
Johnson. Brett Lee had made a significant contribution of 27
facing 61 balls. Towards the end, Michael Hussey (146 from 276
balls with 15 fours) fell through an inside edge onto his
stumps to the same bowler. Unbelievably on a slow track, it
was the two Indian fast bowlers taking nine of the ten
wickets. Zaheer got a 5-wicket haul, to be precise figures of
29.5-4-91-5 and Ishant stamped his class with 30-7-77-4. The
two spinners Kumble and Harbhajan bowled over 40 overs each
with almost 0 result.
India's fielding show became worse in the
afternoon with the seniors getting exposed badly like Ganguly
letting one cover drive go between his legs. Tendulkar too
proved to be sloppy on the field. The Aussies right through
the innings stole hundreds of singles just by dropping the
ball in front of the infielders. India needed to bat 28 overs
in the final session and it was expected to be a tricky
session against Brett Lee and Stuart Clark. However, there was
a different script written by Virender Sehwag, who transferred
the pressure on the Australian bowlers instead. On the slow
wicket, the extra pace of the Aussies helped Sehwag to time
his shots and today he was strong on the onside as well.
Gambhir at the other end kept it tight and hardly gave an inch
away to the bowlers. Soon Ponting's attack was exposed as well
on a flat track. Sehwag smashed his way to 43 from 55 balls
with 7 fours and Gambhir moved onto 20 with 3 fours from 55
balls before rain stopped play in the 19th over. The hosts
have got themselves to a flier and they know if they can
survive Lee and Clark initially, then the Australian attack is
not that potent enough. At the same time, the Indian batsmen
can't relax as the Aussies will be coming hard at them all the
time.
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