The Pitch that wasn't to be

Before the start of the game everyone was of an opinion that, this pitch was going to red hot and Australians in particular were licking their lips at the prospect of Bret Lee and Shaun Tait having a go at the Indians. It wasn't to be, although this pitch had more pace and bounce compared to the ones in Sydney and Melbourne, it was not all that alarming or was the Indian batting line up as weak as the black caps one, who were annihilated by the pace of Lee and Tait in the 20-20 match they played here in WACA last year.

Sehwag and Jaffer set the tone early in the innings with a quick 50 run partnership before Lee found his mojo after changing ends to take out jaffer, who once again was found wanting with minimal foot work. Sehwag as is his wont, after doing all the hard work fell for a nothing short under edging one to Gilli of Johnson's bowling. Sachin and Dravid then set about to build on the opening stand in contrasting ways with Sachin doing the bulk of the scoring in the first half of the partnership through some upper cuts and well judged running between the wickets, Dravid started slow but a brilliant cover drive of Johnson was all it needed for him to grow into confidence and score freely. The 138-run partnership was broken when Lee had Sachin adjudged leg before, a dubious decision with the ball comfortably going over the stumps. Ganguly departed soon playing away from his body, VVS and Dravid threw their wickets away with some shoddy shot selection. Dhoni along with Pathan faught hard to deny Australia the initiative but it was only a matter of time before he has back in hutch and that opened up the floodgates as India lost the last four wickets for two runs. If some one had told me that India would make 330 on this wicket before the start of the match, I would have taken it happily after watching them play all these years on fast bouncy wickets. Bret Lee was again by far the best bowler in this innings and Clark was as usual parsimonious. Johnson was good in patches but over all ineffective but it was Shaun Tait who let his side down with a listless performance, he neither had control or the pace to pose questions to the batsmen.

Australia were in new charters as far as their batting line is concerned with two relatively inexperienced batsmen first up and boy would they have to liked to have Matthew Hayden in the line up, as both the left handers were found wanting in face of some brilliant swing bowling from Irfan Pathan though Chris rogers was a tad unlucky to be give out LBW. Soon RP joined the party by having Hussey caught behind for a duck, first one for Hussey and not a bad time to get one as far as the Indians were concerned. Ishant Sharma then showed why he is rated so high in the domestic circles by taking out Pointing and Clarke with similar deliveries, I am very much impressed by this lad and should say am pretty excited to see how his career pans out.Symonds and Gillchrist played some fantastic cricket before Kumble had Symonds caught at slip, for a well played 66. That wicket being Kumble's 600'th test wicket, which deserves a post by itself to grace the occasion. Gilli fell to a jaffa from RP, the end was swift after that with RP polishing of lee and clark before Kumble accounted for Tait. Aussie innings folded up for a below par score of 212 and India now have a very handy lead of 118 runs, which puts them right in the driving seat.

The story so far in this test match has been how an inexperienced Indian bowling attack out bowled the Australian attack, and it again proves that Australia are not comfortable playing the swinging ball, 2005' Ashes anyone? Pathan and RP were very impressive with the new ball, not only getting the ball to swing but also putting it in the right areas, which would have made Wasim Akram proud, who was watching them bowl from the commentary box. Just hope India doesn't go into a defensive mode and do something silly in the second innings like they did in the last test match they played against SA for they won't get a better chance than this to put one across the Aussies

First test at MCG

All good things come to an end sooner or later, after doing exceptional well in the last two series, India have been found out by Australia and it comes as a timely reminder to the players that you can't win test matches against top teams with Individual performances, rather you need to have everyone in the team perform and do that consistently. It didn't help the Indians cause either by having just one practice match before going into the first test, which was in the end rained off due to unseasonal rain in Melbourne but if anyone is to be blamed, it has to be the BCCI which for all it's greed has to get it's priorities right. In hindsight had they come a week or two earlier the players would have got an extra game and also could have used the time to acclimatise with the surrounding and get their biological clock going. Heck even Sirils played two tour matches before starting their two match series against Australia earlier in the month. Hope the powers that be learn from this experience and prepare the itineraries in future keeping this in mind.

Well coming to the match itself, I think kumble made a bold decision to go in with Harbhajan instead of a third seamer and it did help that bajji performed in the second innings. Pointing didn't lose any time in opting to bat on winning the toss. I think RP and Zaheer Bowled beautifully in the first hour though were unlucky not to get any wickets and to the credit of the Aussie openers they didn't get bogged down, took some cheeky singles and before you knew they put on 50 runs on the board. It took kumble coming into the attack after lunch to get the first breakthrough and Indians thereafter got wickets at regular intervals with Zaheer again bowling his heart out but this time getting those wickets which eluded him in the first spell. Hayden as is his wont against India bludgeoned his way to another century before falling to a rather soft dismissal of Zaheer's bowling. Then Kumble chipped away at the tail-enders but not before they put on some valuable runs and ended up with a five-fer. To have bowled out Australia for 343 and that too after they put a 100+ partnership for the first wicket is a testament to how well the Indians bowled especially Kumble.

Dravid looked like a fish out of water and it didn't help him either that Jaffer at the other end is not someone really quick between the wickets like Dinesh karthik or someone like Sehwag who takes the initiative from the bowlers by attacking style of batting. What ever the advantage Indians had at the end of Aussie innings was negated by this approach, soon jaffer got out edging a slower ball from lee to gilli. Tendulkar and Laxman for a while looked like repeating their Sydney act from the last tour, before Laxman got a jaffa of a ball from lee, Tendulkar then took the attack to Brad hogg who was making his comeback to test cricket after a four year absence and as has been the case with Tendulkar of late, he got out when he looked good for a big one after making 62, which was the only score of 50+ in the match by an Indian batsmen. At this point the Aussie's got an opening and showed how to make the best of it. Yuvraj and dhoni, both went for a duck, kumble being the only tail-ender putting some price on his wicket. Ganguly did play well for some 40+runs before he was undone by a faster one from brad hogg.

Second time around too Indians did well to restrict the Australian batsmen but they had their task cut out by having a deficit of 150+ runs and from that point on India were never in the game and Australians finished the game with minimum of fuss at the end of day four winning the game comfortably by a margin of 347 runs. Though the margin looks big, India to their credit especially the bowlers did a marvelous job. What irks me more than anything is that Tendulkar, Ganguly & laxman got starts but weren't able to convert those into big scores and the failure of Yuvraj in both the innings, who was accommodated into the team by re-arranging the batting order which had a detrimental effect on the whole composition of the team but i am afraid this is how it is going to pan out for the whole series, sooner Dravid finds his feet the better otherwise I fear the worst. If I were the one choosing the team, would have Yuvraj penciled down as the 12'th man and would go with Dinesh Karthik, who performed in Similar conditions out there in South Africa or even Sehwag for the X-factor that he brings into the team with his style of play.

India has three days to sit down and work things out before the second test starts in SCG. Lets see if they learn from their mistakes or just get blown away by the Aussie juggernaut who are from the looks of it on their way of going to better the record of 16 consecutive wins set by the Steven Waugh's Immortals.

P.S:
Lee and bajji, both went past the 250 wickets mark.
Tendlia now has 8 50's against Australia which is a record he shares with Dravid.
Matthew Hayden now has 6 centuries in the 7 test matches that he played in MCG.
Kumble got his 35'th five-fer in the first innings.
Yuvraj has now patented the most pathetic look a batsmen can have when given out.
Dhoni is on his way of getting billed as a Flat track Bully.