Weather, Hayden rob initiative

Four rain interruptions came through today—one extended lunch and one forced early tea—leading to an extended hour of play and a half-hour early start tomorrow. That will absorb seven extra overs from today, and in the process one was left with only five overs lost on the fourth day.

Sunday promises similar gloom, but there was also some sunny action on-field today. Australia are 282/4 in 83 overs —- 213 ahead in the second innings with Michael Hussey relatively lucky to be still surviving on 87 and Andrew Symonds batting on 14.

However, Saturday’s star attraction with the willow was, for a change, a left-hander who uses his bat like a knife and with brutal force to cut open the field in contrast to Laxman’s soft brush-like strokes. And Matthew Hayden’s towering presence was much in contrast to a little man’s, who celebrated with arms held up yesterday. Sachin Tendulkar was among those who applauded Hayden’s century (123) today.

Australia got off to a good start with the overnight pair of Hayden and Phil Jaques adding 85 for the first wicket before the latter fell 15 minutes before lunch. Soon, India had gained further initiative by sending back a tentative Ricky Ponting who failed to stand up to Harbhajan Singh yet again. Ponting actually spent more time out in the middle as a runner to Hayden who had a right thigh strain.

Hayden and Hussey began a crucial afternoon session with extra caution, with the pitch wearing down near the footmark area, precisely where Kumble and Harbhajan were hitting with clever variations in pace and flight.

There was a lot of padding up, interspersed with the sweep, against Kumble particularly. Hayden reached his half-century from 101 balls and looked more comfortable as he progressed, while Indians looked towards the other end to gain a breakthrough.

At the other end, Hussey frustrated the Indians as a string of near misses allowed him to stay on. It was compounded after Benson replied in the negative to an lbw appeal from Anil Kumble when the batsman on 22, hit plumb standing on the backfoot. Yuvraj barely got his hands to a tough chance at mid-wicket, before Benson again said no to an RP Singh appeal when Hussey edged on 45 to Dhoni to a leg-side delivery.

Hussey moved on slowly, reaching his ninth Test half-century from 105 balls (six fours). Hayden got his opportunity to get level with Don Bradman, scoring his 29th Test hundred in 160 balls with 11 boundary hits, proclaiming his taste for Indian bowlers with yet another big knock on this series.

Hayden threw away his wicket—playing a reverse sweep that landed straight into Wasim Jaffer’s hands.

That was when it was necessary to up the run-rate and try and present a strong plinth for his side to take a call tomorrow morning.

Immediately, the Indians struck another blow, and this time Michael Clarke edged an attempted cut to Rahul Dravid and Symonds had to walk in and survive a strong lbw appeal against Kumble on his hat-trick ball.

Hussey, seeing things drift away, pushed more firmly in the last stages before bad light brought an early end to the proceedings. For the Indians, tomorrow is an important day — Kumble is two short of 600 wickets, and maybe India can spoil the Australian record of consecutive wins.

Scoreboard

Australia 1st innings 463

India 1st innings 532

Australia 2nd innings (overnight 13/0)

P Jaques c Yuvraj b Kumble 42

M Hayden c Jaffer b Kumble 123

R Ponting c Laxman b Harbhajan 1

M Hussey batting 87

M Clarke c Dravid b Kumble 0

A Symonds batting 14

Extras (b-3, lb-3, w-2, nb-7) 15

Total (for 4 wkts; 83 overs) 282

Fall of wickets: 1-85, 2-90, 3-250, 4-250

Bowling: RP Singh 14-2-47-0, Ishant 8-1-37-0,Harbhajan 28-5-65-1, Kumble 29-3-110-3, Tendulkar 2-0-6-0, Yuvraj 2-0-11-0

DAY 4 DATA

• Anil Kumble became the first Indian and 12th bowler overall to take 100 wickets against Australia in Tests. The champion leg- spinner achieved this feat in his 16th Test, by dismissing opening batsman Phil Jaques, caught by Yuvraj Singh on the fourth day of the second Test match at Sydney Cricket Ground on Saturday

• Matthew Hayden’s century was his fifth in 26 innings off 13 Tests against India and 29th in the 93 Tests he has played so far . Hayden became the joint sixth highest century maker in Tests (Australian Don Bradman and South Africa’s Jacques Kallis have scored 29 centuries )

• Hayden became the second Australian after Allan Border to score more than 1500 runs against India.

• Michael Clarke earned his first duck in 31 Test matches.

• Michael Hussey became the 57th Australian batsman to complete 2000 runs in Test matches. Australian Don Bradman holds the record of fastest 2000 runs in terms of innings followed by West Indian Geroge Headley. Bradman achieved this in his 20th innings.

—S. Pervez Qaiser