It would have been interesting to be a fly on the wall in the dressing rooms of both the teams in the interval between the innings to hear what the captains were saying to their teammates. The Indian skipper, Mahendra Singh Dhoni, was probably congratulating his bowlers for doing such a good job in restricting the Australians to less than 200 and getting them dismissed in 42 overs. With an asking rate of less than 4 runs an over required to win the game, there’s not much he could have said to his batsmen.
In any case, what is there to tell Sachin Tendulkar and Sourav Ganguly who have seen it all and done it all for so long. He may have asked for some views on who should bat at No. 3, but apart from that he probably would have settled down in a chair and had something to eat. He had shown his awareness of the situation by — tactically — getting treatment after the 9th Australian wicket fell and there were 35 minutes left for the scheduled break between the innings. If the last wicket had fallen with 30 minutes or more left for the break, then the Indian team would have had to come in to bat for about 20 minutes or so and that he knew would have been an awkward time not only because no batsman likes to go in to bat with so little time left before an interval, but also because the dusk time with the natural light fading and the floodlights coming on is the hardest time to bat.
Ricky Ponting, on the other hand, would have used the interval to exhort his bowlers to rise to a different challenge of defending a small total. Australian teams in recent years have seldom been dismissed for less than 200 when batting first and since they are always looking for new challenges, trying to defend 193 was going to be a good one.
They almost did it and but for a sensible partnership between two experienced campaigners, Zaheer Khan and Murali Karthik, the Aussies would have won another battle. Zaheer and Murali were terrific as they hit the bad balls for fours and sometimes the good one like Brett Lee’s for a six to keep the score going forward. The Aussies had piled on the pressure with some acrobatic fielding and some tight bowling around the off-stump. The injury to Hopes meant that they had to make up for his quota of unfinished overs and though Michael Clarke got Uthappa out, he was not able to exert the same pressure that Hopes had managed. Uthappa and Harbhajan also deserve pats on the back, for it was their partnership that steadied the Indian innings and gave it breathing space.
Uthappa has made a strong case to be promoted up the order and the application shown by Harbhajan is noteworthy, for earlier he was prone to throwing his wicket away.
India used yet another batsman at the crucial number three position and once again it did not work. Batsmen like to feel settled at a particular spot and only in extraordinary circumstances like an injury or the need to get ultra quick runs, should positions be changed. Even for Australia Michael Clarke, promoted to open the batting, got a second consecutive golden duck, so it’s not something that’s confined to the Indian team alone.
It was good to see the Indians respond in such a cool manner to the pressure and going on to win. Self belief and never say die is what separates the winners from the losers. This time it was India who won.
