Its Only Cricket

Day 3 : Sydney suspense continues as Indian tail wag


Bhajji-Sydney.jpg Sachin Tendulkar, with no debates, is the best batsman Indian cricket has ever produced.. but talk about most expressive cricketer - Sourav Ganguly's name would pop up higher than most..

Start of Day 3, players take the field and Ganguly comes out running for the pitch. Mid-way, he stops - joins Tendulkar, who then runs all the way to the pitch to begin the proceedings. first ball - cheeky single! first three overs 12 runs, and India accelerating towards Australian total. Ricky Ponting had 18 more overs to bowl before the new ball - so Brad Hogg was Aussie trick. which, of course, failed.

Record ODI opening pair of India, Tendulkar-Ganguly, looked comfortable against relatively defensive Australian mid-set who slowed down the overrate & bowled far away from the stumps. Their idea was - frustrate strokemakers, which in turn allowed Indian batsmen get their eye in. Twist to the tale arrived when Ganguly scooped one Hogg delivery to mid-on & Aussies were able to create pressure on Yuvraj Singh. Dhoni followed soon - India 345 for 7 wickets!

Even experienced Kumble nicked one to Gilchrist behind wickets, but silent determination of Sachin Tendulkar had to find someone at some point.. Harbhajan Singh raised his hand. together, these two made new 8th wicket partnership record for India vs Australia, and then Rudra Pratap saw India go past Australian first innings total. Ishant Sharma, playing only his 19th first class match & batting for the first time at International level - initially survived but ended up consuming 34 more balls to make 23 runs.

India took 69 runs lead!

India vs Australia : 2nd test, Sydney : 2-6 Jan, 2007-08 series
Aus 1st Inn : 463 all out (112.2 overs) India 1st Inn : 532 all out (138.2 overs)
Jaques 0, Hayden 13, Ponting 55, Jaffer 3, Dravid 53, Laxman 109,
Hussey 41, Clarke 1, Symonds 162* Ganguly 67, Sachin 154* (243b, 14x4 1x6)
Gilchrist 79, Lee 59, Johnson 28 Yuvraj 12, Dhoni 2, Kumble 2, Bhajji 63
Aus 2nd Inn : 13 for no loss in 13 overs Rudra 13, Ishant 23, Lee 32.2-5-119-5
Jaques 8(19) and Hayden 5(11) India takes lead of 69 runs on 1st Innings
Australia trail by 56 runs with 2 days to go..


Day 3 Notes
**We talk about the disciplines Australian bowlers show day in day out! but so far, in this Sydney test match, they've bowled 8 no balls as against 3 by Indian bowlers in this match. Home team have missed 3 wickets so far in the series cause they were foot no-balls!
-Adam Gilchrist got part 400 test match victims as a wicket keeper, but he also dropped a couple more in addition to 2 easy catches he missed yesterday. To highlight record by a wicket-keeper for most dismissals - Mark Boucher of South Africa has 408 wickets and still playing.. so expect some healthy competition among the two best wicket-keepers Test cricket has ever seen.
-Sachin Tendulkar now has scored over 2000 runs against australia. In his phenomenal career, Tendulkar has most runs against Australia then any other country! He now has 653 runs at Sydney cricket ground in 4 appearances and he hasnt been dismissed for the last 3 times at SCG.. 241*, 63* and 155* in this match.
-Harbhajan batted well today. Very well, and he now has 1000 runs in test cricket at an average of almost 18! Together with Tendulkar, he broke Indian record of best 8th wicket partnership against Australia, which was previously held by Syed Kirmani and Karsan Ghavri, made in 1979 = 128 runs. Tendulkar-Harbhajan Partnership produced 129 runs!




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