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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 IndvAus Nagpur Test 2008

75 yards straight & 80 yards on either side ~ newly built VCA Ground in Nagpur is much like Aussie cricket grounds with tons of 1s & 2s plus few 4s and yes, occasional 6s.

Batting first, at the end of Day 1, India scored 311 with only 31 fours & 1 six whereas Australia picked up 5 top order wickets.

Debutant Murali Vijay showed glimps of promise before he was sent down back to back bouncers by Shane Watson ~ first bouncer kissed his helmet & Murali edged second one to keeper. Exaclty how Manoj Tiwary got out at Gabba 10 months ago on his ODI debut. Same had happened to Wasim Jaffer on his debut, if I remember correctly.

So, it can be safely said that one bouncer, then another bouncer is another Aussie trick to get debutant batters out..

Moving forward -> under 33 degree Celsius & 80% humidity - Off spinner Jason Krejza made his debut and was thrown as a challenge by captain Ricky Ponting to Virendra Sehwag.. only the 12th over of the match and Indian opener fell into the trap. Rahul Dravid was already picked up by Krejza as his first test wicket, hence - India 116 for 3 in 23rd over before lunch.

Consolidation came from partnership between Sachin Tendulkar & VVS Laxman as India again started to gain momentum. then, Laxman went back to a turning Jason Krejza delivery and edged it to keeper while avoiding it. Sachin Tendulkar did complete his century but slowed down terribly towards the end to finally lose his wicket.

Captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni decided to play out last 20 minutes of the day himself instead of sending a night watch-man.

Few notes to note
**Murali Vijay is now India's 260th test match player whereas Jason Krejza became 404th player for Australia to play test cricket.

**Not very many people watched this first day of inaugural match at Vidhrabha cricket association ground and one of the reasons was the ticket price.. Stadium has set bizarre clause that only tickets for all 5 days will be sold.. no single day tickets available, as of now.

**Sachin Tendulkar scored his 40th test match hundred today - 6th November 2008. Last time he scored century (his 39th) was in January 2008 at Adelaide vs Australia.. 15 innings ago. Australian Captain Ricky Ponting has 36 centuries as of today. Mathew Hayden and Jacques Kallis (with 30 centuries each) are also in the top 10 list of most hundreds by a batsman.

**This is Australia's 700th test match. Previously, and very interestingly, Australia had won their 1st, 100th, 200th, 300th 400th, 500th and 600th Test Match!!

**Should Australia fail to win this test match, or even draw it - they'll lose the series and in that case - it will be their first test series lost since June 2005.

**Since year 2000 Australia has been dominating test cricket world wide and has lost only 12 test matches.. 6 to India, 4 to England and 1 each to South Africa and West Indies.

**This is India's first test match at VCA stadium in "Jamtha" in Nagpur (India had played all previous tests at Nagpur at other stadium with same name in same city of Nagpur).. Now do you know how India have done playing first time at home, but a brand new venue? off the 19 home test venues - Indian team has lost 9 times and won only 4 times with 6 draws. Win % = 21.05.

Scorecard : India vs Australia 4th test, Nagpur : 6-10 November 2008

Preview : Sourav Ganguly's farewell on Red "untested" Nagpur Pitch

Day 1 : Both sides stand equal : Sachin Tendulkar's 40th century

Day 2 : Krejza & Katich Shine : Match split wide open.

Day 4 : Australia to chase 369 on last day : Draw not an option

India wins back Border-Gawaskar Trophy, Series 2-0.