Batting to save his career,Michael relearns to rock

Papers the next morning were also full of DRS stories. One opinion piece called Sachin Tendulkar’s dismissal to Peter Siddle,which caused him to fall narrowly short of his 100th international hundred for the umpteenth time,“a delicious moment of cricketing karma”.

Clearly,a lot of Aussies were miffed; none more so perhaps than Hussey himself. His place in the side already under question,the first-innings first-baller had left him in a situation where his walk out to the middle an hour before tea on Day Three to a rousing reception from the MCG faithful might well have been his last as a Test batsman,were he to fail again.

The score was 27 for four. At the other end was Ricky Ponting,a man who had started the Test in the same boat as Hussey but had since taken one foot off it with a first-innings half century. The ball was jagging this way and that,and India’s pace attack was bowling at its quickest in living memory. Hussey couldn’t afford to let any sort of emotion cloud his thinking.

Ishant Sharma gave him a full ball on the pads first up,and Hussey worked it for three to get off the pair. Retaining strike with that stroke,Hussey now faced Umesh Yadav. He pulled his bat away from the first three balls,but the fourth,pitched fuller and a touch straighter,drew a prod. The edge fell short of slip and rolled between his legs to the third man fence.

After a double the next ball,Umesh bounced Hussey. A resonant crack echoed around the MCG as the left-hander swivelled and pulled just in front of square for four.

From that point on,Hussey was as decisive with his footwork and as precise with his timing as he has been at any point during his career. He leaned over the forward defensive,leaned into the cover drive,leaned across for the square cut and shouldered arms impeccably. By the time tea arrived with Hussey on 29,it seemed silly that Ed Cowan,who had been LBW without offering a stroke,had been anointed Hussey’s successor to the title of Australia’s best leaver.

Ponting,galvanised by his first innings runs and roused into gladiatorial mode,had shown more composure and class than any time in the last one year in reaching 33.

A slice of luck

A little bit of luck went his way too. On 15,Zaheer struck him in line with a delivery angled,as the ball-tracker showed,towards middle stump from around the wicket. The umpire was unmoved.

Apart from that,Ponting was untroubled. The Indians had a deep backward square leg in place,but didn’t bother bouncing him,after the futility of that tactic in the first innings. The short ball on off stump,meanwhile,was punched square on tiptoe,with a fleet-footed back-and-across leap.

Both batsmen,more importantly,were passing the technique test,unlike the younger,flashier batsmen in the top three. Later,Ponting revealed that the “thickish grass” on the wicket was aiding seam movement with new and old ball,and that it was a struggle for anyone to truly get his eye in.

Fifties came up in quick succession post-tea. Feet off the ground,Ponting punched Ishant through point for an all-run four to prompt the crowd to rise once more. Nine days after his 37 th birthday,he was as swift between wickets as ever. In the next over,the 36-year-old Hussey swiped Ravichandran Ashwin into the leg side and ran his second triple in three balls to bring up his half-century.

A typical old-ball burst from Zaheer Khan consumed Ponting,who walked off the MCG without anything in his body language suggesting he was doing so for the last time in his career. Who knows,he’ll probably be back when Boxing Day comes round next year.

Hussey enjoyed a reprieve late in the day when Rahul Dravid dropped him at slip when he edged Ashwin thickly,beaten by dip midway down the pitch. When he walked off the middle unbeaten on 79,Hussey,and a few angry Aussies,might have felt a little more at ease with fortune.