Australia won the toss and managed to batted through the first day after looking at one point as if they might bat through the first two days. That point came to an end at 135, when Phil Jacques was stumped by no longer hirsute wicketkeeper M S Dhoni off Anil Kumble for 66/108b (8x4)
Thereafter it was a struggle for all the other batters except for Matthew Hayden. Yet again he showed his class in making 124/183b ((9x4), while the next highest scorers were Andrew Symonds 35/42b, Adam Gilchrist 23/42b(which says something about the bowling when he was in) and No 11 Stuart Clark who swatted 21/17b at the end. Australia finished the day with a respectable, but far from dominating, 9/337.
The Indian bowlers varied in quality: the openers started well yet seemed to lose their collective way until captain Kumble (24-5-84-5) dismissed Jaques and thereafter, apart from a couple of overs which were punished, checked held the Australians. Zaheer Khan (22-1-93-3) was the best of the others.
After a day of good quality Test cricket I'm not willing, and I expect I won't be alone in this, to make any predictions about its future course. But I'm looking forward to the struggle continuing.
Scorecard and Cricinfo Bulletin
No comments:
Post a Comment