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Day 1 : In-form Indians gallop first 9 wickets


History suggest most test matches are won on the basis of your performance in first innings, more than how your second innings goes..

Kumble-Melbourne-Day1.jpg Taking lunch at 111/0, captain Anil Kumble lead a remarkable fightback, taking 5 of 9 wickets to fall on Day 1 of this first india vs australia test match at Melbourne, nicely supported by Zaheer Khan (3/94).

Not by chance, but "Special" was how Indian bowlers planned every delivery they bowled to each Australian batsman (down leg side to Symonds, around & at stumps to Ricky Ponting, flighted deliveries against Michael Hussey & outside off-stump to Adam Gilchrist).. and ultimately earned their rewards. Australian batters were guilty of carrying one-day mindset into this 5 day test match & lacked patience required for longer version of cricket.

Interestingly, the two medium pacers India played in the last test match before this, were Irfan Pathan & Ishant Sharma, but none of them feature in Indian playing eleven in this test match.. to me, this shows Indian think-tank were pretty sure who are their wicket-taking bowlers & allowed them enough rest before long tour downunder!

Now Day 2 & 3 are usually the best batting days at Melbourne ground, so Indian batsmen should run away with this test match. 5 of 7 Indian batsmen have batted before in Australia (and struck centuries), so expect some fireworks tomorrow.. and some defensive cricket from Ricky Ponting, for a change!!

Score : End of Day 1
Australia 337/9, 90 overs
Phil Jaques 66, Hayden 124, Ponting 4,
Clarke 20, Hussey 2, Symonds 35, Gilly 23,
Lee 0, Hogg 17. Kumble 5/85, Zaheer 3/93.

India playing XI : Rahul Dravid, Wasim Jaffer, VVS Laxman, Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly, Yuvraj Singh, Anil Kumble, Harbhajan Singh, Zaheer Khan & Rudra Pratap Singh.

Day 1 Notes from Melbourne
**Undercover anti-racism police were seated in the over 60 thousand crowd at the MCG today to pick any nonsense. Thankfully, apart from a naked man, nothing happened which can be termed as nonsense!

Hayden-Melbourne-Day1.jpg **Indian players (specially Dhoni behind the wickets) were very quite.. not saying much in Hindi.. that's also because Cricket Australia officials met Indian squad members to learn what kind of words in Hindi can be categorized as offensive. any spectator found guilty of such faults will be banned from the stadium, for life!

**Rahul Dravid now has 159 catches in test match cricket. He is at the 4th position in the all time list of fielders with most catches in test cricket.. Mark Waugh (181), Brain Lara 164, Stephan Fleming 161 are ahead of Dravid.

**This is the 100th test match for Sourav Ganguly. Its also the 100th test match as a venue for Melbourne cricket ground and incidentally - this is where Sourav Ganguly made his International debut - an ODI game in 1992. The left handed batsmen is now in peak of his form, scoring over a 1000 runs in test match in a calender year for the first time!

**Wonder when Indians team will next tour Australia? well, it'll ne in Year 2011, which also is a world cup year which will be played in India itself!

**As Australia start their bowling on Day 2 of this first test match, watch out for Adam Gilchrist who is about to break Australian Ian Healy's record of most dismissals as a wicket keeper. Till today, Gilchrist = 391 victims from 91 games, Ian Healy = 395 from 119 games! Mark Boucher has the record for most wickets as wicket-keeper with 403 from 107 games. Adam Gilchrist will also be seen keeping with PINK GLOVES to raise awareness for breast cancer! Gilchrist's five major sponsors have agreed to donate $18,000 per dismissal Gilchrist claims during the Test.




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