Sport

Sehwag’s strikes give India a wedge

— Photo: S. Subramanium

ENTHRONED: Virender Sehwag had a royal outing with the ball coming up with three wickets.

New Delhi: Having drawn from the template for the famous home victory, impeccably following its tenets in running up a score of 613 for seven declared over the first two days of the third Test, India faltered on the third.

The bowlers didn’t quite manage the sustained accuracy the wearing Ferozeshah Kotla strip demanded, as resilient efforts from Matthew Hayden (83), Simon Katich (64), Ricky Ponting (87), and Michael Hussey (53) helped Australia end on 338 for four.

Virender Sehwag’s classically sound, vibrantly conceived off-spin accounted for three of these batsmen. The dismissal of Hussey with the second new ball was a minor masterstroke — it remains to be seen if it has allowed India enough of a wedge to split Australia in the two remaining days.

Friday, misty as the mountains when it began, found Hayden and Zaheer Khan engaged in familiar conflict. Zaheer struck Hayden on the helmet and the shoulder besides provoking a play-and-miss in the day’s first over, but thereafter the left-handed opener settled. He wasn’t as bruising as he normally is, preferring to wait for the ball to square-cut and the one to work to leg.

Zaheer failed to string together a series of tautly controlled deliveries — an affliction that manifested itself in the bowling effort through the day — and Hayden prospered.

At the other end, Anil Kumble and Katich were locked in a terrific little contest of will and skill. Kumble, aiming his hacking leg-breaks from around the wicket at the soil loosened by the bowlers’ footfalls, was trying to coerce Katich into prodding off the front foot; the left-hander meanwhile was attempting to get outside off-stump and play the break and the bounce off the back-foot down on the leg-side.

Kumble nearly found success when his will was established: once, the ball popped off glove, but fell short of short-leg; another time, it burst through an attempted cover drive but eluded both the stumps and the keeper. But Kumble, to his immense frustration, wasn’t landing everything where he desired. Katich, with his slap-handed method of driving was able to delay his commitment to a forcing stroke, and yet find the boundary.

Amit Mishra’s side-spun leg-breaks gripped and turned, and although he was pounded over wide long-on for six by Hayden, the 25-year-old kept tossing it up and was rewarded with the breakthrough. Katich played around a leg-break, the closed bat face allowing the turning ball clear passage to the stumps.

Ponting profited from Kumble’s choice of fields. The Indian captain had begun with two slips and short mid-wicket, which was whittled to a slip, short mid-wicket and short-cover.

Kumble’s reasoning that a wicket might be had in front of the wicket with ball stopping on the batsman wasn’t unsound, considering the two-paced nature of the surface, but the several edges that squirted through the untenanted slip and gully region eased any pressure that might have built.

Ponting’s movements grew less anxious and jerky, and soon he was standing tall to force through cover and flitting back to back-cut.

Just as it seemed that Hayden and Ponting would grind India’s bowlers all day, making capital of the doles on offer, Sehwag struck mid-way into the second session.

Having troubled Hayden with a mixture of robust off-breaks and skidding straighter ones in the over before lunch, Sehwag trapped his man in front with one that went with the arm. His off-spin was in currency because of an unfortunate injury to Kumble — the Indian captain splitting the little finger on his left hand during a diving attempt to catch Hayden off Mishra at short mid-wicket.

Dhoni, who took charge as Kumble was conveyed to hospital, didn’t make obvious tactical changes to the plans in place, although he speculated with Sachin Tendulkar’s leg-spin and presided over a magnificent spell of reverse swing from Ishant Sharma (and briefly, Zaheer) after tea.

Ishant harassed Ponting again, swinging and cutting the ball both ways at sharp pace. The Australian captain needed all his considerable skill and a liberal helping of fortune to stay alive.

Ponting was felled, however, by a beautifully weighted Sehwag off-break that drew the batsman fatally forward. Another crackling off-break ripped across Hussey, uprooting the off-stump, late in the day.

India’s bowlers, not least Mishra, manufactured several such deliveries deserving of wickets; indeed they created at least thrice as many threatening deliveries in a day as Australia’s bowlers did in two. But the consistency that holds a bowling effort together, enhancing its menace, was missing on Friday.

SCOREBOARD

  India — 1st innings: 613 for seven decl.

Australia — 1st innings: M. Hayden lbw b Sehwag 83, S. Katich b Mishra 64, R. Ponting b Sehwag 87, M. Hussey b Sehwag 53, M. Clarke (batting) 21, S. Watson (batting) 4; Extras (b-16, lb-3, nb-6, w-1): 26; Total (for four wickets in 105 overs): 338.

Fall of wickets: 1-123 (Katich), 2-202 (Hayden), 3-284 (Ponting), 4-326 (Hussey).

India bowling: Zaheer 16-4-57-0, Ishant 19-5-46-0, Kumble 17-3-53-0, Mishra 30-7-95-1, Sehwag 22-4-66-3, Tendulkar 1-0-2-0.

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