Its Only Cricket

3rd Test: Australia wins Sydney Test (scorecard), South Africa won Test Series 2-1.. T20 & ODI series follows.
Current Cricket Series : South Africa vs Australia, West Indies vs New Zealand. Coming Up : India in NZ 2009.

Filed under India v Victoria

In a team game, one player shows the way as rest of his mates follow. On last tour to Australia, Sourav Ganguly had set the tone with counter-attacking century at Brisbane in first test, and rest of Indian batsmen (Dravid, Sehwag, Laxman & Tendulkar) followed with individual centuries.

Then, in 2003-04 - India had almost beaten Australia in Australia.. 4 test series ended 1-1.

Now, on this 2007-08 tour, same Lefthander is in sublime form and free of captainship burden. So, expect some centuries coming!

Today at Junction Oval in Melborune, after Captain Kumble decided for a rest, allowing MS Dhoni to captain the side in this only tour match against Victoria - Rahul Dravid opened the innings with Wasim Jaffer after Indians won the toss. Early morning rain had already eaten up the first 3 hours of this Day 1, and light wasn't perfect either. Pitch had fair amount of juice & grass but stressing on playing positive cricket - going for a win in this tour game - Indians batted first.

Wasim Jaffer mistimed a pull shot (again), and VVS Laxman was caught off a faint edge down the leg side. Tendulkar was greeted with good bouncers by second string Victoria fast bowlers (Siddle, Wise & McDonald). Little master played some handsome pulls before he played one delivery onto stumps. Indians were 38 for 3 down, but confident Sourav Ganguly showed them the way.

Interesting is Rahul Dravid's situation, who seems rock-solid while defending but his scoring shots aren't coming. Very much like what Akash Chopra did on that last tour, rarely making a fifty himself but allowing other stroke maker a foil to come & blast Aussie fast bowling. Present Indian squad has enough explosives which just needs a Rahul "The Wall" Dravid, even if he scores at strike rate of 40!

Now Day 2 of this Indians vs Victoria match will start half an hour early to make up the lost time, but the weather reports for Melbourne isn't great.

India vs Victoria : 3 day first class match
End of Day 1 : India 110 for 3, 38 overs.
W. Jaffer 0, VVS Laxman 1, S. Tendulkar 19(18),
At crease : R. Dravid 33(112) & S. Ganguly 51(86).

Indian XI : Wasim Jaffer, Rahul Dravid, VVS Laxman, Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly, Yuvraj Singh, Mahendra Dhoni, Irfan Pathan, Rudra Pratap, Pankaj Singh & Ishant Sharma.
Victoria XI : DJ Hussey (Cap), AC Blizzard, AJ Finch, JW Hastings, N Jewell, AB McDonald, BE McGain, RJ Quiney, PM Siddle, MS Wade (wk) and AB Wise.

Preview : India's warm-up match against Victoria

One last test of Dhoni's abilities!

Day 1 : Rainy welcome to raging Indians

48 overs & India ready for Melbourne