CB Series - Match 10 - Australian batting summary
February 26th 2008 15:37
It is a batting beauty here in the 10th match of the series at Sydney. Dhoni's ill luck with the toss continues and Ponting chooses to bat first. Brett Lee is back for Australia and Sehwag is in for India and Sreesanth is in for the indisposed Munaf. For once, in the case of Munaf it is not fitness issues but dehydration due to food poisoning. Still, he would be missed in this crucial game for the Indians. And Sehwag is back for Praveen Kumar - good, logical decision.
Australia got off the blocks with a racing start. Anything that Sreesanth or for that matter Ishant bowled was summarily dispatched. Both the Indian bowlers were guilty of not concentrating on line and length areas in this pitch and instead trying too much. Sreesanth particularly can ill afford such lack lustre performances after the pasting he got in the last match he played. With India having a plethora of options as far as fast bowling is concerned, quick assessments of bowling form would be the order of the day and bowlers would lose out to younger and fresher options after two or three poor performances. And rightly so.
To be fair to Sreesanth, he got back with a good little second spell of two overs, but it was too little too late. This performance does not change the fact that he is one very talented bowler. He is young and it is to be hoped that he will get back to his wicket taking ways very soon.
Meanwhile it is Australia all the way. Hayden literally collared the bowling - banishing, bludgeoning and bashing his way through to a 50. It was not pretty but it was mighty effective. Another very ordinary decision while running between the wickets brought about his downfall. I must say I am really surprised at Australian batsmen running through even before ensuring that the ball has passed the fielders. And it must be said that Hayden is much less than athletic and so could not turn fast enough to avert dismissal. It also must be said that while it was a good pickup from Rohit Sharma, it was a very poor throw. Sehwag did a great job of taking the ball on the bounce and disturbing the wickets. Great teamwork by the two, though.
Sehwag bowled a far better spell of off spin bowling than Harbhajan even though the figures may not tell that side of the story.
Ponting struggled early on with his timing and gave a few half chances but the Indian fielding is not as sharp as was hoped for. Not by a long way. Ponting though got over that case of nerves and played a few rousing pull shots. It is the pull shot that defines Ponting and today he essayed one such shot off Irfan Pathan which actually travelled miles before hitting the second tier of the stand in the square leg boundary. It was a treat for sore eyes and with it the old Ricky Ponting seemed to have arrived. And yes, when good batsmen find form they make it count. He has duly completed his century and is looking good for some more. Ponting has also completed 11,000 runs in ODIs. Congratulations are due to Ponting for chalking up so humongous a tally of runs in such quick time with a quicksilver strike rate too. At best he is a free flowing attacking batsman whose bat seems to have springs attached to it. Not that it actually has. Such is his timing. And arguably he plays the ball with the hardest pair of hands holding the bat. It works in as well as against his favour. It works in his favour when he plays fast bowling and against him when he plays spin. But for now, he is reigning supreme at the crease.
Michael Clarke gave Ponting company for a decent amount of time while stroking the ball fluently as well as using his feet against the spinners. But the persevering Sehwag got an offspinner to grip, turn and bounce slightly more than expected and the pull shot by Clarke landed safely in Rohit Sharma's hands in square leg.
Symonds is with Ponting currently and is penetrating the field or clearing it seemingly at will. None of the Indian bowlers barring the two spinners - Harbhajan and Sehwag seem to have had any effect on the batsmen.
The Indian batting is going to be up against a huge score on a good batting track. They will also have the rested and resurgent Lee to face up against. Can Tendulkar come to the party here? He has had a pretty ordinary ODI series so far and it is upto the world's best batsman to assert himself on the series today. It will also be interesting to see if there is any change in the batting order or whether Dhoni decides to go with Sehwag to partner Tendulkar. Personally I would like to see Sehwag at No. 4.
Game on!
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