Related Links : Australia in India 2008/09
Australia were humiliated by a 20-year-old left arm spinner Gajendra Singh on the first day of their warm-up match against the Rajasthan Cricket Association Centre of Excellence at Jaipur. The Aussies were bundled out for a paltry 218 with Gajendra Singh picking up a five-for. The tourists’ innings lasted only just over the 77 overs. Only Simon Katich got some respectability through a fine innings of 73.
The Aussies did bounce back with the ball but that was expected as the pace of Brett Lee and others will always be too good for lesser known first class batsmen. The Rajasthan team slipped to 38 for 2 in 11 overs but they do have a tiny sort of fight coming from international discards Gagan Khoda and Y Venugopal Rao, who both are unbeaten on 18 each. Venugopa Rao is also the Skipper of the host team. Both Brett Lee and Stuart Clark had taken a wicket each and the former had got his scalp with the first ball of the innings itself.
The Aussies had a dramatic collapse earlier on after an opening stand of 54 between Hayden and Katich. Hayden’s exit after a 48-ball 16 provided the collapse with Gajendra Singh going onto pick 5 for 58 in 22.1 overs besides bowling as many as 7 maidens. Katich, who has been there for a long while in India having captained the Australia A team had shown the much needed application in his 155-minute stay in which he got 73 runs out of 105 balls with the help of 10 fours. All rounders Shane Watson (30 from 81 balls with 3 fours and a six) and Brad Haddin (21 from 61 balls with 2 fours) were the only ones to get anything significant among the batsmen after Katich. Ironically, this batting collapse against spin comes after a few days of solid practice for the tourists on wickets that were tailor-made to suit their requirements to face Harbhajan and Kumble in the coming days.