A tame draw

I don't remember the last time I saw an Australian team playing for a draw, it pretty much shows how rattled they were from the Perth's loss.

Kumble won the toss and elected to bat, Sachin helped himself to another century, Laxman as usual threw away his wicket when he was well set for a big one. Just to rub it in kumble almost got his second century before running out of partners or patience which ever way you want to look at it. When the Australians turn came to bat, Hayden hit his third century of this series and Indians had their task cut out when RP Singh pulled out injured. Ricky Pointing and Michael Clarke scored a century each and it was nice to see Pointing being made to work for his runs. By the time their innings folded, there were only two results possible either a draw or an Australian victory, which was stretching it a bit too far.

Second time around Sehwag finally proved to all and sundry that he belongs to this level by playing one of the best knocks played in this series, which in a way saved India from an embarrassing situation. Actually by the end of day 3, I lost complete interest in this test match save for the chance to see Adam Gilchrist play one last time, was more than disappointed when Sehwag held on that catch which dismissed Gilly. Test matches involving Australia won't be the same any more at least for me with Gilly gone.

The score line of 1-1 would have been apt for this series but I guess, 2-1 ain't that bad either.

WACA-Perth

Last time around when India played a test match on this ground, a certain gentleman called Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar announced himself to the world, playing one of his best knocks, all this at the age of 18. Still that was not enough as India lost the match eventually by a pretty big margin. Also this was the last time that Australia went with an all pace attack, after 16 years down the road, they are once again going into this test match with four pace bowlers.

Shaun Tait gets a game, that can be good news for India because for all that pace he generates, is pretty erratic and scoring against his bowling should not be a problem, provided they can see off Bret lee and Stuart Clark.

Hayden is injured so Chris Rogers get to make his debut on his home ground. Other than that the Aussie batting looks solid as usual and the Indians better be vary of Gilchrist because he hit a 57-ball century against England in the last test match played here.

Indians have finally decided to drop Yuvraj, Sehwag comes in for him and should open which means Dravid will come to bat in his regular batting position. Sehwag can be the trump card on this kind off a wicket, which suits his batting style. Other change should be Pathan coming in place of Bajji, taking the pitch into consideration but stranger things have happened on this tour that make me a bit skeptical.

The pitch at WACA seems to have finally got back it's pace and bounce which made fast bowlers queuing up to have a bowl here in the past . Judging by the previous track record, you might want to punt against India but Indians have showed so far that they are up for it and I won't be surprised if they pull a fast one on Australia, provided the batsmen stick to their task and put up a decent score on the board.

Century Number 38

Sachin had to wait for this century for quite a while now, the relief and the celebrations that followed after getting that century told it all as to how badly he wanted it. The whole of last year he got into the habit of getting out in the 90's, for a while it seemed that he couldn't go past those 90's, so it was even the more important that he didn't let it happen again this year. Sachin couldn't have chosen a better occasion to finally get to that 38'th century and more importantly in doing so swing the game India's way.

The platform was set by Laxman yesterday and it was important that one of Ganguly or Sachin go onto make a big score, so that Laxman's effort is not wasted. For a while it looked like Ganguly would be the one, but he gave it away rather meekly and his reaction said it all as to how disappointed he was in getting out at that point of the game. Yuvraj soon followed, undone by Bret lee's pace and seriously Yuvraj is asking for trouble with such a high bat lift. What followed next was shocking, Dhoni for all his pre-tour talk of the Australian Pitches suiting his style of play et al has now got three failures in three innings, to his defense this is his first time touring Australia but then common sense says that you adapt to the conditions rather than play the same way you do on the Sub-continental pitches. The shot he played of Brett Lee's bowling was going only in one direction, either to the keeper or the slips. Kumble followed next and there was a real danger of a collapse but then Bajji, like hogg on the first day came out with positive intent never backing away from playing his shots, got an entertaining 63 in quick time but more importantly stuck in there with Sachin, who increased the tempo of his game with some breathtaking shots and brilliant running between the wickets.

Indian tail has showed in the recent times that it can wag, they added some important runs in South Africa and then in England helped Dhoni save the first test played in Lord's. But this effort really takes the cake where the Number 9,10,11 along with Sachin added 187 runs with RP, Ishant and Bajji being the dominating partners in each of the partnerships. It might be due to the fact that, when Sachin was playing every fielder was either on the boundary or half way to it except for the gully and it made no sense for Sachin to play aggressively, when his partners were doing a pretty good job of scoring runs at a fair clip. Whatever you make of the Sachin not shielding the tail, the important thing is, at the end of the day he helped India get a lead of 63 so that should really shut anyone who might want to criticize that. Also the fact that Bret Lee acknowledged it to be brilliant move on Sachin's part proves how he outmaneuvered the Aussies.

This has been a superb test match with some excellent performances and at this point the match is evenly poised with India having a slight advantage. All three results are possible and the first session tomorrow might well decide on the way this match might pan out. India needs wickets and cheap ones at that, much depends on how bajji and Kumble bowl tomorrow. Bajji looked really up for it in the one over that he bowled before close of play. He will be quite a handful on this wicket tomorrow and I expect him to do well keeping his past performances against Australia into the perspective.Couple of wickets before lunch will put India in the driving seat.

P.S: I wonder if the Aussie PM Kevin Rudd is so jobless that he could attend the day 2 of the MCG test and then he has been attending this test for the last two days, Jeez doesn't he have a country to run.