India buckle under Steve Waugh-Ponting onslaught

ADELAIDE, DECEMBER 10: By the time Adelaide Oval started brimming with people, an endorsement of Sachin Tendulkar and his team's popularit...

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ADELAIDE, DECEMBER 10: By the time Adelaide Oval started brimming with people, an endorsement of Sachin Tendulkar and his team’s popularity here, India had produced four shocks to send the crowd into hushed silence. The colourful scoreboard on a slightly chilly, cloudy morning at one of the most beautful Test match venues in the world, read Australia 52 for four with only a shade over an hour’s play having taken place.

This was the kind of start the Indians were expected to make. But the unusually aggressive and disciplined Indian attack, after being told to bowl first, had the top order Australian batsmen pay dearly for their indiscretions. Were the Indians out to prove most of its critics wrong?

It did not take long for sanity to be restored and the crowd to get back its voice and enjoy an afternoon of brilliant sunshine and strokeful feast. From 74 for four at lunch, the Steve Waugh-Mark Ponting partnership prospered without resorting to defensive tactics. The Indian medium-pace attack, which had promised the moon in the morning, was showered with bold attacking strokes. India, despite getting the better of the first session, started feeling the heat and by the end of the first day’s play in the opening Test match of the series, Australia did what was expected of them: zoom to the top.

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Steve Waugh, whose Test record against India before this Test had been dismal, corrected this historic imbalance and in his 21st century of grit, character and steely temperament, he scaled a new peak. He is the only cricketer in the world to have hit centuries against all the Test playing nations of the world. Today, he also became the second Australian and the eight batsman in the world to cross 8,000 runs in Tests.

He was not alone to make Indians look inadequate in the field. His partner, Ricky Ponting, another centurion of the day, was in fact the one who began the recovery for Australia with brutal on-side play, smashing the Indian pace attack to smithereens in the first hour of the post lunch session.

The first hour of that session could well turn out to be the most crucial one for India in the entire series, as it was in this period they gave away the initiative earned with so much of hard-work in the morning, especially on a track which eased out to become a batting beauty.

Javagal Srinath bowled with lot of hostility in the morning and was also not guilty of pitching the ball short. Venkatesh Prasad was even better. Moving the ball, getting it to bounce as well, Prasad had the top order in a tangle. Kapil’s mantra of `pitch-up’ seemed to have done the trick. The gentle medium-pace of Saurav Ganguly too proved productive, the dangerous Mark Slater, launching himself in haste for a drive only to be plucked inches above the ground in the covers by Sadagoppan Ramesh.

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The weakling was Ajit Agarkar. Despite appearing nippy, his length was not right and was easily smashed. His batting ability alone must have got him the nod ahead of Debashis Mohanty.

Tendulkar began with Ganguly from one end after lunch. Waugh and Ponting, in a thrilling counter-attack, took apart not only Ganguly but Srinath as well.

By the time Tendulkar remembered to give the ball to the best bowler of the morning, Venkatesh Prasad, the damage had been done. The Indian bowlers got carried away, and unlike in the morning started pitching short. The ball started hitting the advertising boards with great regularity, much to the crowd’s glee. The Indians may feel sour at having been denied Ponting’s wicket when his attempted hook landed in wicketkeeper’s gloves. But they should remember that the same TV replays which suggested that the batsman may have gloved the ball, also showed that Justice Langer had edged the ball onto his pads when he was declared lbw.

Before Ponting was run out in the closing stages of the day, his 239-run partnership with Steve Waugh had taken them to a new high, ahead of a very long-standing record between the two countries: a 223-run fifth wicket partnership between Arthur Morris and Donald Bradman in 1947-48 in Melbourne.

SCOREBOARD :

Australia (1st innings):

Michael Slater c Ramesh b Ganguly 28 (69m, 47b, 4×4, 1×6)

(caught inches above the ground at cover)

Greg Blewett c MSK Prasad b Srinath 4 (10m, 7b)

(driving outside the off stump)

Justin Langer lbw Venkatesh Prasad 11 (46m, 23b, 2×4)

(struck on line with stumps on the frontfoot)

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Mark Waugh c MSK Prasad b Venkatesh Prasad 5 (35m, 17b)

(driving outside the off stump)

Steve Waugh batting 117 (298m, 251b, 14×4)

Ricky Ponting run out 125 (275m, 198b, 15×4)

(Agarkar’s throw from deep cover)

Adam Gilchrist batting 0 (9m, 3b)

Extras (b 1, lb 1, nb 6): 8

Total (for 5 wickets): 298

Fall of wickets: 1-8 (Blewett), 2-29 (Langer), 3-45 (Slater), 4-52 (Mark Waugh), 5-291 (Ponting)

Bowling: Srinath 22-3-83-1, Agarkar 16-3-55-0, Venkatesh Prasad 17-4-50-2, Ganguly 7-1-34-1, Kumble 23-1-60-0, Tendulkar 2-0-12-0, Laxman 3-1-2-0.