Related Links : India Vs Australia 2007/08 : 3rd ODI Scorecard
India once again went down to Australia after failing to chase a tall score. In the third ODI at Hyderabad, Yuvraj Singh scored a great century but was the only man fighting for India as they went down by 47 runs. This time the blame for the defeat would go on the top order which struggled against the Australian new ball attack. The Hyderabadi crowd would have still got their money worth despite an Indian defeat as they had got to see as many as nine sixes along with the swashbuckling batting from Andrew Symonds and Yuvraj Singh.
The Australian Batting…
The Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium in Uppal, Hyderabad was hosting just its second ever ODI. Excitement was in the air as the Stadium got packed with 40,000 spectators who do not have the luxury of watching an International Match that frequently. This match saw the return of Ricky Ponting and the man to make way for him was Brad Haddin who has got two fifties in the first two One Dayers plus a Man of the Match award! The Indians replaced Ramesh Powar with Rohit Sharma with a fit Sourav Ganguly not getting a look in. Ponting won the toss and opted to bat first. The Indian bowlers – Zaheer Khan and Sreesanth were off to a terrible start as the pair of Hayden and Gilchrist decided to make merry on a good batting track. It was only in the 14th over that the Indians could find their first breakthrough as Gilchrist got bowled playing right across an Irfan Pathan delivery. Gilchrist by then got 29 in 31 in an opening stand of 76. Hayden and Ponting ensured that there was another partnership coming through although the latter was slightly troubled by Harbhajan Singh. In fact, Irfan Pathan and Harbhajan Singh bowled restrictive spells that pulled the run rate down. Irfan Pathan once again was the partnership breaker and this time he got Hayden’s leg stump uprooted with a yorker. Hayden did his job by scoring 60 in 70 with 10 fours. And when Yuvraj Singh was brought into the attack, Ponting went after him only to be caught in the deep having made a 43-ball 25 leaving Australia at 135 for 3 in 28.2 overs.
Having been set on a nice foundation, the inform Michael Clarke and Andrew Symonds took the innings forward in their respective styles. While Michael Clarke was accumulating runs through singles and twos, Andrew Symonds got his run by freeing his arms often. Both batsmen got to their fifties and in the process, the Australians got to a formidable total on a track that had an element of variable bounce. Clarke was dismissed in the 45th over after he had got 59 in 71 in a partnership of 123. Symonds stayed right till the last over scoring a bludgeoning 89 in 67 with five fours and five sixes. It’s another matter that for the third consecutive time he was dismissed by Sreesanth. Australia fell short of the 300-run mark and to be precise they posted 290 for 7. All the three pacers used by Dhoni picked up a couple of wickets each. But only the two wickets taken by Irfan Pathan were significant enough. Harbhajan Singh was the best bowler with none for 38 in 10 overs but the criticism is that he hasn’t been good enough to take wickets! India’s decision of bowling Yuvraj Singh in the slogs proved costly as the part-timer was taken for 21 in an over.
The Indian Batting falters again…
Within the first five overs, the Indians were rocked back with three early wickets including that of Rahul Dravid. Brett Lee had started the top order collapse by getting Gautam Gambhir lbw and then Mitchell Johnson did the same to Robin Uthappa. An outswinger later from Lee got Dravid nicking it to the first slip where Hayden held a fantastic low catch. Both Uthappa and Dravid were out for ducks. Having watched three wickets go down, Sachin Tendulkar was quick to drop the anchor and started the repair work with the more confident Yuvraj Singh. India started to fightback through this partnership but the run rate was quickly moving upwards with most of the scoring coming only from the bat of Yuvraj Singh. The hopes of the Indians to win this match was almost lost In the 25th over Tendulkar was bowled by a flipper from Brad Hogg after looking to improvise. It looked meaningless for a batsman to have played 71 balls to score just 43 runs when his side was chasing nearly 6.00 runs per over.
The dismissal of Tendulkar however made things a lot better for the Indians with MS Dhoni starting off in a positive note striking two boundaries and Yuvraj Singh just continuing his flow. This partnership was starting to threaten the Aussies which made Ponting to bring back Brett Lee for a couple of overs. And Lee answered to his Captain’s call by getting MS Dhoni caught behind. Dhoni made 33 from 37 with 4 fours taking India to 173 for 5 after 36 overs. The task for Yuvraj Singh became almost impossible when Rohit Sharma and Irfan Pathan fell cheaply. It was match over for the Indians and some spectators started to leave the Stadium. But the crowd were wrong in leaving as Yuvraj had just started to launch a stunning assault on the Australian bowlers with Harbhajan Singh securing his end. Yuvraj with his amazing strokeplay raced away to his second hundred against the Aussies and his eight one in his career. However, the final nail on the coffin came when Yuvraj was clean bowled by Mitchell Johnson. Yuvraj walked off the park to a standing ovation having made 121 in 115 balls with a dozen fours and three sixes. This was the second time in as many times that Yuvraj Singh had got a hundred at this venue. India eventually got bowled out for 243 in 47.4 overs with Harbhajan collecting 19 runs with a four and a six. Brett Lee and Brad Hogg were the chief destroyers with three wickets each. All the frontline bowlers were amongst the wickets for Ponting.