India-Australia Second Test @ Bangalore : Indians remain No 1

After winning an important toss and putting up a score of 478, Ricky Ponting must be thinking that he could not lose this test match. On the contrary he must have been thinking a win. The start of the Indian innings was according to his script too. Sehwag got out to a stupid shot, and a batsman of his caliber and seniority should know how not to get aggravated. Dravid perished fishing outside the off with his bat too far away from the body. Unusual dismissal for a person who has such an exquisite technique and temperament. The Australians had to wait for over 6 hours before claiming the third wicket. In that period Murali Vijay and Sachin demonstrated total control over the hapless Australian attack and both scored centuries. The Maestro went on to score a double and looked good to score his first triple, until he played a loose shot. Indian bowlers came into their own in the third innings of the match and ensured that India had a chance to win the test. Ricky Ponting yet again got out in the seventies and that means Sachin is 10 centuries ahead of him, with some easy test matches coming up. The final innings required Indians to score 206 to win and they got there quite easily. Dhoni played a master stroke after Sehwag departed early. He sent in Cheteshwar Pujara at 3 ahead of Rahul Dravid. Firstly, it upset the Australians thought process because they would have been expecting Dravid to walk in. Second, Pujara must have felt very positive with the confidence shown by his captain. And it also ensured that if things did not work out, Dravid was there to stop any collapse. Superb move, and it paid off.

Overall, the Australians performed very poorly in all the three departments. Their batting revolved around Watson and Ponting, no one else stepped up. Bowling was pedestrian except in small spells. At this rate, the English team must be licking their fingers at the prospect of winning the Ashes. They really do have a good chance to win. Ponting will be under tremendous pressure because he has now lost too many matches on the trot without a win. His strategy and field placing on the final day also attracted a lot of criticism. They need good fast bowlers, good spinners and batsmen who can play the reverse swing.

As far as Indians are concerned, batting is our mainstay and all of them delivered. But this series really belongs to the bowlers. They bowled well, batted well and showed character. Fielding can definitely improve; remember those dropped catches in the first innings of the series. We are not creating enough run out opportunities and thus putting the seed of a doubt in the batsman’s mind. Singles are available very easily. On the batting front, we have a good problem with too many people claiming too few spots. We now need a good bowling all rounder, someone like Kapil or even half of that. Pity that Irfan vanished from the scenes after showing so much potential. That person will also ease the burden on the main strike bowlers.

So we retain the No 1 ranking very convincingly. Well done India and look forward to the next series.

India-Australia First Test @ Mohali : What a cliffhanger

If one was looking for a classic commercial to promote test match cricket, he should have been at Mohali over the past 5 days. A great test match between two evenly balanced teams, ended with a win for India with the narrowest of the margins. I am sure a number of people stopped watching the telecast/webcast for superstitious reasons when we needed 20 odd runs. I was among those people. Such was the tension and the swing of fortunes that either team could have won. So let us take a deep breath and look back.

I thought the Indian team looked rusty in the first innings and it was shocking to see Dhoni drop two regulation catches. Sehwag too dropped an easy chance and all of these lapses proved costly. Shane Watson scored a uncharacteristic slow century and Tim Paine scored a 90. With 400+ runs on the board, Aussies looked like they could not lose this test match. But the Indian response was very good, at least the first half. Everyone at the top of the order contributed and it was a shame to see Sachin miss out on his 49th. Then I don’t know what happened but Dhoni and Raina threw their wickets away to irresponsible shots and we were caught short of the target. Ideally we should have consolidated and got at least a 50+ lead.

In the second innings, things were very quiet and the match was heading towards a draw till Ishant got into the act. He got three (well almost three) wickets in an over and that got the team charged up. Zaheer and the spinners also chipped in and we had a game on our hands. 216 to get in the fourth innings was definitely gettable.

The Australians are known for their never-say-die spirit and they came out with all guns blazing. Whatever thoughts the Indians had were blown to pieces in a matter of few overs. At 55/4 on day 4, all was lost. Then came that heroic innings from Ishant and VVS and India won by the smallest of the margins.

The reason I said the teams were balanced, is because if you look at the score sheet, there is a fifer from both teams, there is a century and a near one on either side. The fielding of the two teams was superb largely, except for some glitches.

The umpiring in this test match was poor. There were at least 5 bad decisions, but as they say everything evened out in the end. Some of those decisions were rank bad and I was surprised to see Billy Bowden making mistakes. May be the age is catching up on him.

We go into the second match with some key players nursing injuries. Ishant, Gambhir, Laxman and Bolinger are doubtful starters. But these two teams are capable of creating something out of nothing and providing excellent entertainment to all the spectators.