In the corridor of uncertainty

The wicket,expected to flatten out by Day Three,still had enough in it for even the oldish Kookaburra to keep darting around off the seam. But the trend across recent Sheffield Shield games at the venue has been for teams to chase down big targets or get close. The three Shield matches at the MCG this season have seen fourth-innings scores of 363/5 (win),318 (loss) and 399/9 (draw with scores level).

The day began with India 214/3,looking to get past Australia’s 333 and build a big lead. Instead,their last seven wickets added just 68. The rout began off just the second ball of the day,Rahul Dravid bowled by a peach from Ben Hilfenhaus that angled in,pitched on off and straightened to hit the top of off.

During the Ashes,Hilfenhaus had carried a knee injury that had prevented him from giving his all through his final delivery stride. His arm had fallen,his pace had dropped and his outswinger was swerving almost immediately after release. Working with Tasmania bowling coach Ali de Winter during the off-season,Hilfenhaus had straightened his run-up and moved his point of release closer to 12 o’clock.

Big Ben in the zone

The results have been dramatic. Over all his spells,Hilfenhaus has hit the low-to-mid 140s and swung it late. With an old ball approaching its sell-by date,he sent back Dravid and Virat Kohli. His successes continued with the second new ball,with MS Dhoni and nightwatchman Ishant Sharma pushing away from the body with hard hands. With Ishant’s wicket,Hilfenhaus had his first Test five-for.

Victorians Peter Siddle and James Pattinson exercised their home crowd’s vocal cords some more,sharing the rest of the wickets,Siddle bowling a beauty to end VVS Laxman’s tentative 22-ball vigil,with no runs coming off the first 20. If not for a gutsy 31 from Ravichandran Ashwin,India may have folded up about 20 short of their eventual 282.

When the visitors got their hands on the Kookaburra,Fleming’s ‘alley of anxiety’ became the ‘autobahn of anxiety’. For probably the first time in their Test history,India were fielding two men who clocked 150kph on the same day in Umesh Yadav and Ishant Sharma.

Landing his outswingers in the autobahn a little more consistently than in the first innings,Umesh sent back all of Australia’s all-left-handed top three. Two of them,David Warner and Shaun Marsh,were guilty of paying homage to the format that first brought them to notice,inside-edging onto their stumps while driving away from their body.

In between,Ed Cowan’s new-found reputation as the best leaver in Australia took a beating,the opener shouldering arms to one that swung into him and rapped him plumb in front. Michael Clarke then became the third Australian to chop the ball on,a little more credit to the bowler this time as Ishant produced a wicked in-ducker at 149.9kph to make the score 27 for four.

Fighting the conditions and the questions hanging over their careers,Ricky Ponting and Michael Hussey produced a 115-run stand to take the hosts out of the woods and beyond.

Breakthrough wicket

With the lead seven short of 200,Zaheer Khan returned for the 41 st over of Australia’s innings. The left-armer’s first ball,slanted across the batsman,was left alone. Zaheer moved the second fuller and wider,asking Ponting to launch a cover drive at it. He did just that,and the ball,reversing further away,sliced off his bat face and nestled in gully’s hands.

The match situation and the stature of the dismissed batsman caused Zaheer to celebrate rather more exuberantly than he normally does. But when he had Brad Haddin caught at second slip the next over,Zaheer performed his usual routine — arms out by his sides (a la Shah Rukh Khan),a cocky nod of the head and the smile of a bowler who knew what would happen at the top of his run-up.

At the other end,Ashwin was beginning to discover the ideal pace and length for this kind of wicket. He drew Hussey out of his crease thrice in one over and found the edge on the last occasion,only for Dravid to grass it at slip.

Umesh brought India some solace with the wicket of Peter Siddle,caught by MS Dhoni flying to intercept one-handed in front of Dravid,before Ashwin finally found reward for the holding job he’d done,defeating Nathan Lyon with a carrom ball for the second time in the match.