Australia begin the final day needing 369 to win, 203 more than whatthey scored against India’s restrictive fields on Saturday. India have theadvantage and a good reason to deploy an 8-1 field again. They will benaïve, however, to expect a similar appr
Cricinfo staff09-Nov-2008
VVS Laxman was bowled by a ripping Jason Krejza offbreak © AFP
On the penultimate day of the series the contest between India andAustralia came alive like never before in the preceding weeks. Today’splay was blockbuster action compared to Saturday’s Chinese water torture.It was riveting to watch because, for the first time in the series, thematch swung like a pendulum in the day. India andAustralia won a session each and the hosts were perilously close tofrittering away their tremendous advantage until the pressure ebbedbecause of Australia’s slow over-rate.Each time India seemed to have done enough in this Test to ensureownership of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy they were jolted intorealising that Australia, no matter how weak they appear, will not becomprehensively beaten by anything less than a ruthless performance. Indiaproduced that sort of performance in Mohali. They haven’t managed itanywhere else.In slipping from 422 for 5 to 441 all out in the first innings, Indiafailed to post a score that would shut Austalia out of the game, like theyhad done in Delhi. Australia ambushed their way back into the match byscoring 189 for 2 at nearly four an over. It took a whole day ofdisciplined lines and defensive fields to retrieve the situation and gainan 86-run lead.India’s openers built on that advantage during today’s morning session andwhile Sehwag was batting, with M Vijay giving him sensible support, thelead extended rapidly. It didn’t matter a jot that Ricky Ponting had a 7-2offside field for Mitchell Johnson and 6-3 for Brett Lee. When the ballwas wide – although not as wide as India’s line – Sehwag went after it,blazing drives and cuts through the cover-point region. He was beaten byJohnson several times by the angle across off stump but it did not changehis approach.Sehwag had treated Jason Krejza with disdain in the first innings but had eventually fallen to the offspinner. Anyone else might have batted with a bit more regard, but not Sehwag. He continued to smashKrejza down the ground and towards the leg-side boundaries. A short whileafter lunch, India had a lead of 202 with ten wickets intact. Surely theseries was theirs.Not quite. The ball had begun to reverse a little and Shane Watson usedthe movement to trap Vijay lbw. But it was hardly a significant openingfor Vijay was a debutant who had perhaps exceeded expectations by sharingopening stands of 98 and 116. And the middle-order trio of SachinTendulkar, VVS Laxman and Sourav Ganguly averaged over 50 each in the series and had not failed collectively since the first innings in Bangalore.The link between the openers and the middle order, however, has beenIndia’s biggest problem. Rahul Dravid’s failure has punctured themomentum provided by the openers because the first wicket has often beenfollowed quickly by the second. He failed again. India’s control over thesituation dissipated with Sehwag’s departure for 92. The scenario wasremarkably similar to the first innings when India lost three quickwickets after the openers had added 98. Tendulkar, Laxman and Ganguly hadconsolidated the innings on that occasion.Today, however, the middle order went into ultra-defensive mode. Theboundaries became hard to find and even singles were few and far between.Dravid had scored 3 off 18 balls, Tendulkar managed 12 off 55 and Laxman 4 off 34. The passage of play after Sehwag’s dismissal began to resemble the Cape Town crawl when Tendulkar and Dravid stagnated against Paul Harris in the third innings. The pressure mounted slowly but steadily, India’s run-rate dived, Australia’s fielders inched closer to the bat.The Sunday crowd – the largest of small crowds so far – waited for the batsmen to ride out the phase but instead they were shocked into silence. Laxman got a ripping offbreak from Krejza which took the edge on to leg stump; Sourav Ganguly, perhaps overwhelmed by it being his last innings, closed the face too early and offered Krejza a return catch.
India regained the advantage with the Dhoni-Harbhajan partnership © Getty Images
Tendulkar’s dismissal summed up the chaos the innings was in. He had got off the mark with a terrific cover drive off Watson and had scored 6 off his first nine balls. His next six runs took 46. In the last over before tea, he pushed towards cover-point and sprinted for an impossible single. Tendulkar’s run-out was Australia’s sixth wicket in thesession. They had conceded only 68 runs and only 18 in the last hour. Theyweren’t bowling two feet outside off stump with an 8-1 field either.The severity of India’s predicament was eased after tea, however, whenAustralia had to bowl Krejza from one end and a part-time slow bowler fromthe other to make up for a tardy over-rate. The pressure-bubble burst andMahendra Singh Dhoni and Harbhajan Singh found scoring simpler. India werewithout direction at 166 for 6 – 252 ahead – but slowly began to regainthe advantage.Australia begin the final day needing 369 to win, 203 more than whatthey scored against India’s restrictive fields on Saturday. India have theadvantage and a good reason to deploy an 8-1 field again. They will benaïve, however, to expect a similar approach from Australia. The final dayof the series holds tremendous promise for a thrilling finish to theseries.
