Today folks was a day of riveting action. In fact the excitement started much before the players reached the field. Anil Kumble had been mentioning to the media that he would be taking a call on his participation in this Test on the morning of the game. The news was that he was not playing. That in itself was not great excitement for the public but his replacement was not R.P.Singh or Munaf Patel. In fact it was another legspinner - Amit Mishra.
And it was to be M.S.Dhoni to lead the Indians into this crucial encounter at Mohali. The pitch had been much spoken of prior to the encounter and the expectations were of a reasonably fast pitch with consistent carry and with that magically elusive 'something' for he faster bowlers. However, the Indian camp thought otherwise and decided to stick to their four bowler strategy. And not just the four bowler strategy but the same mix too - 2 spinners and 2 faster bowlers. The Australians went with almost the same team except for the change which was forced upon them - Peter Siddle came in for the injured Stuart Clark.
M.S.Dhoni won the toss and had no hesitation in choosing to bat first. It was interesting to hear him talk of Amit Mishra as somebody who flighted the ball more and turned it more, when asked about Kumble's replacement for the match. Sehwag and Gambhir strode in purposefully to face Lee and Co.
From the first over onwards it was apparent that while the bounce was even, the pitch was slightly sluggish and that it was going to be a batting beauty. Gambhir started things off with a lovely checked on drive and Sehwag soon followed - glancing and flicking and caressing the ball through the covers in beguilingly silken fashion. Gambhir was naturally the more reserved of the two but he too opened up with exquisite cover drives and even one raspin pull off the persevering Shane Watson later on in the day. But to start the proceedings, Ponting strangely trusted Lee and the debutant Siddle. Lee was strangely off colour today and did not look like taking a wicket for the most part. Peter Siddle though was always on the money. His very first ball - the first ball of the second over thudded into Gambhir's helmet. He is a bustling, energetic bowler who is always at the batsman. With all due respect, he is not the most talented of bowlers in terms of variety or imagination, but whatever he has he gives of it to the fullest possible extent - which is what any captain would want.
For the first 5-6 overs India went rollicking away with a run rate of close to 6 runs per over. Although things quietened down after Ponting resorted to defensive field placements quite early in the day, it was still around the 4.5 run mark till lunch. India had got to 79 without loss and Australia had come down to using its second rank seamers at India - headed by Mitchell Johnson. One wonders why Ponting prefers to give the new ball to anybody but Johnson. If I remember right, the lad took the new ball the last time he toured India and was quite successful. For all his past success and the rave reviews he gets, I view him as a basically limited bowler as he is now. He is right up there as far as pace is concerned. But he does not have the variety or the movement needed that distinguishes the good from the great. Things may change down the line, but at present he is pretty much a single dimensional bowler for the most part. However he does have a very good slower ball which he demonstrated which picking up the wickets of Sachin Tendulkar and Gambhir in the last match.
Today Johnson who was well into his spell had looked innocuous till then. He bowled a slightly short delivery coming near Sehwag's hips slightly wider of leg stump. In attempting to glance the ball finely, Sehwag got a healthy nick which was safely pouched by Haddin. It was a very sad way to get out and Sehwag was indeed very unlucky - as Johnson's sheepish expression showed. But he did have to walk out and make way for one of his illustrious countrymen, Rahul Dravid.
Now, to many of us, today's innings from Rahul Dravid would have been underlined by one word - fluent. He was extremely aggressive as far as mindset goes and managed to punish the bowlers by flicking/glancing/driving the ball to the legside if it was so much as anywhere near the line of the stumps. But it should also be noted that this innings did not see many shots at all through the offside from him.
Yes, it was an innings which was beautiful to watch and it served India's purpose of not losing momentum. However, it is worrying to watch a few flaws creeping into this technician's game. It is not that the Australians bowled wide of the stumps to Rahul Dravid. Shane Watson had already found some reverse swing and the effort seemed to be to get Dravid to drive uppishly and get caught at mid wicket just like in the previous Test. In that the Australians severely underestimated the skill and craft of Dravid. Here one must also comment on the falling standards of commentary in today's cricket telecasts. Laxman Sivaramakrishnan in the course of play today remarked that Rahul Dravid fell over while playing to the onside. He also remarked that Dravid flicked balls to fine leg for boundary. In the first instance, Siva was completely wrong. Dravid always had control over the movement of his head and upper body when he was guiding the ball through the off side. He was also able to retain his balance as also play straight as and when required - which a batsman falling over will find exceptionally hard to do. Finally if Siva wanted an example of a batsman who falls over when he plays to the legside, there is the Australian captain ready to give him a demonstration. It does work for some people better than most, to be honest, but Dravid does not belong to that category. And time and time again, we could hear about how Dravid flicked the ball to the boundary when all he did was glance it off his hips. It is sad that the commentators - including Mark Nicholas could not make out this basic difference.
To come back to the problem in Rahul Dravid's technique - in the years gone by, Dravid had a predominant shuffle of his back foot enabling him to get behind the line of the ball and to allow him to take extra time in executing the cut or the pull. Nowadays though, this initial movement has been changed. Now, he uses his front foot and moves it smartly forward in the direction of cover to start with. This allows him natural angle to turn deliveries onto the legside but naturally complicates his ability to play straight. The Dravid of today is compensating for this by squaring himself up when playing straight and also by getting his bat in such that the toe end of the bat is tilted ever so slightly towards the leg side. That is not the best way to approach things. And this more than anything else hampered his offside play. Given that the Australians did not bowl too many outside the offstump, whatever was there escaped punishment.
Naturally, even the delivery which got him out finally, was a short ball on the fifth stump or so on the off side. Dravid's forward movement carried him closer to the ball than he cared to and when he tried to play a cut shot, he could not as it was too close to his body and the resultant under edge, disturbed his leg stump. The Dravid of yore would have made his customary shuffle and stood tall on his off stump and used a straight and high elbow to execute a beautiful backfoot cover drive. It needs to be seen whether this changed approach is a result of the Australians' relentless legside attack or whether this has crept in to replace his original method.
After his fall, the stadium leapt onto its feet and roars reverberated. Sachin Tendulkar walked in - looking up into the Sun and looking very purposeful yet serene. He looked in good touch from the start. With the score being the same, Gambhir too fell to a lazy waft at another innocuous Mitchell Johnson delivery. This brought in Laxman to pair wth Tendulkar. It is interesting how this pair has not featured in more eye-catching partnerships, but that is the truth. Today too, this was not to be changed as Laxman gave Johnson another sheepish reason to celebrate by edging one through to the keeper down the legside. Unfortunate but nevertheless out.
These triple strikes meant that the momentum had swung the other way and that India would not quite be rushing along at the earlier rate. Ganguly started off very sedately but surely. As always he took extra time before facing the bowling, I am sure, causing ample frustration to Ponting and co.
Before dwelling on Sachin and Ganguly's batting, it is necessary to talk about Ponting's fluidity of tactics earlier in the day. The Australian attack was monotonous. It did not have the quality to initimidate the batsmen, neither did it have the guile to bamboozle. And this was not a responsive pitch. In such a state, Ponting forced the issue by placing two midwickets and asking his bowlers to consistently bowl at the wicket. That nobody got out at midwicket is not the pont. He was always doing something, he was always at the batsman and always seemed to have a plan. This has the effect of getting a batsman to try something silly like Rahul Dravid's square cut to a ball which was not wide enough. This was followed by Gambhir's lazy waft. Ponting also saw that Lee was not at his best and used him sparingly while entrusting the majority of the work to Siddle and Johnson - the work horses of the attack.
Sachin played as only he could - nudging and nurdling the singles and doubles, and at times exploding into brilliance with a crashing square drive or a copy book cover drive. Most of the time today, it was the master's glance and flick shots which were called into action. One such shot off a 143 kmph ball from Johnson was ample evidence that the man was not done yet with cricket. When on 13 runs, Sachin opened the face of his blade and guided one to 3rd man and took 3 runs - which got him the record of the highest scorer in Test cricket ever. Amidst endless cracker bursts and announcements on the giant screen, all the Australians went out of their way to congratulate him on his monumental achievement - starting with Ricky Ponting. This was a grand gesture from one of the most bitterly criticized teams in the world - as far as sportsmanship is concerned. Today they could not be faulted.
Sachin was not done yet today and he scored at a fair clip to get into 80s before giving his wicket away to another debutant - Siddle - nicking behind. This was very near to the end of day's play. Instead of the captain walking in himself, we were treated to the scene of the lanky Ishant Sharma walking in as nightwatchman. There were still close to 4-5 overs of play left and this did not seem to be the brightest move. Ishant, thankfully, does have a good defense. He held his own and also faced most of the bowling thereby shielding Saurav Ganguly too. Ganguly himself, crossed the 7000 run mark in Test cricket and was looking pretty after a well played half century. Trade mark cover drives and languide eases through the covers were still part of his repertoire as he showed early on in his innings.
At the end of the first day's play it is advantage India at 311 for 5. However a lot depends on Ganguly and Dhoni to see if India can make this advantage count and get to a score past 400 tomorrow. The pitch could speed up as play goes on but will never be anything other than a batting beauty for the most part of this match. So, other than batting well to make this advantage count, India will also need to make use of its spin attack to eke out the Australian wickets with wile and guile. Here too the advantage lies with India as it will be bowling last in this Test match. So, everything is set for a riveting Test match and one which hopefully is headed towards a result.
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