Subscribe to Desicritics
India-Australia Sydney Test, Day 1
Kartikeya
Australia won the toss and elected to bat on a very good cricket wicket. India left out Zaheer Khan after he failed a fitness Test, and Ishant Sharma played in his place. With an inexperienced, scratch new ball attack, it was expected to be a long day.
The Australians don't go about things conventionally. An Indian batting line up faced with a bowling line up like India's on this kind of wicket would have dug in and ended the day at about 310/3. The Australian line up is full of players who don't believe playing too carefully, and this was evident when Phil Jaques, who (with good reason) probably thinks that Test cricket is in fact easier than First Class Cricket, tried to upper cut a short and wide rising delivery over the slips and managed no better than a touch through to Dhoni. It was a clear cut edge, the batsman walked, and by the time Steve Bucknor had lifted his finger, everyone already knew that a wicket had fallen.
Mathew Hayden was the next to go. He was squared up by RP Singh and Tendulkar took a good catch diving towards the wicketkeeper at first slip. It should really have been Dhoni's catch, but he too was "squared up" in a sense by RP's delivery, for he was moving towards the leg side.
Sourav Ganguly then got a lucky edge of Ricky Ponting's bat down the leg side, but Umpire Benson ruled in the batsman's favor. This, as it turned out was only the first umpiring error of the day. After a brisk half century, Ponting was ruled out LBW by Umpire Benson off a palpable inside edge. Even in the morning session, India were unable to control the runs. They were unable to bowl to their field consistently. It was a sign of things to come.
The post lunch session saw wickets, umpiring errors and a rousing Australian recovery. After Ricky Ponting had been dismissed by Harbhajan Singh for the 7th time in eight Test matches, RP Singh found the outside edge of Michael Hussey's bat for Tendulkar to take his second catch of the day. Michael Clarke then padded up to Harbhajan Singh in front of off stump and was quite plumb. And finally, Gilchrist continued his struggle against the Indian attack and edged RP to Sachin Tendulkar who once again made no mistake. It was 6/134.
Brad Hogg came in to bat and immediatly set about the bowling. He showed why he averages 35 with the bat in first class cricket and played strokes which would make a batsman proud. At the other ender, Andrew Symonds was quietly playing himself in, aided by a lucky break when Steve Bucknor missed an outside edge off Ishant Sharma. Later, the third umpire ruled in his favor when one replay showed that his back leg was in the air, while another was less conclusive about this for a stumping appeal off Anil Kumble. In all fairness the umpire probably got this right. This was the sort of dismissal which showed the limitations of technology. One camera angle showed that the foot was in the air when the bails were broken, another showed that the bails were not fully off when the foot was in the air. The technology is obviously not fool proof and i wouldn't consider this an error, even though it has to go down as a cautious decision. The general opinion though, seemed to be the the TV umpire had made a mistake.
Amidst all this, the Hogg and Symonds were putting the bad balls away and milking the good ones for runs to the well spread out field. All this while Andrew Symonds was getting more and more confident and once he had reached 50, India had no chance. Paradoxically, as he improved, Hogg seemed to run out of steam and touch and it was no surprise when he edged Kumble to an alert Rahul Dravid at first slip. By then, the two had added 173 in less than 40 overs, and Australia had not only recovered, in terms of the scoreboard, but had built up tremendous momentum.
Brett Lee averages 21 with the bat in Test cricket. He played himself in with confident footwork and showed a keen eye for the scoring opportunity. India took the new ball, and this accelerated the scoring rate, as can sometimes happen especially with a set batsman at the wicket. RP and Ishant tried manfully but the wicket had eased and for Symonds, the new ball just went faster off the bat.
Australia ended the day at 7/376, having scored at over 4 runs an over. There are those who claim that this is some kind of strategy. It is not so much a strategy as it is an approach to batting that almost all the batsmen in the line up take (with the possible exception of Michael Clarke). An erratic, inconsistent bowling attack is cannon fodder for this line up, which has enough depth and quality for someone to come good and make it count in nearly every innings. This is their "natural game", and the Indian attack has shown itself to be unable to control the scoring against this Aussie line up for the third consecutive innings now. Cricketing supermen like Andrew Symonds don't make it any easier.
India will have to bat out of their skins to make a match of this. The Indian batsmen will be up against a vastly superior pace attack and an incomparable fielding unit when they bat tomorrow.
Day 1 in this new years Test match has belong to Andrew Symonds.
India-Australia Sydney Test, Day 1
RSS:
- Subscribe to RSS 2.0 feeds for:
- » Comments on this article
- » Sports
- » Sports: Cricket
- » Desicritics.org articles by Kartikeya
- » All Opinion articles
- » All Desicritics.org articles
Chandra
January 2, 2008
09:22 AM
to Andrew Symonds and steve bucknor....
change ur views about RP Singh?
kartikeya
URL
January 2, 2008
11:04 AM
Well... no. I don't think he bowled too much better than Melbourne. This was a more helpful wicket. He went for 5 runs per over!
For that matter, every indian bowler went for over 4 an over yesterday, and India failed to bowl Australia out. Thats not even remotely a winning anything of anybody with that kind of profligacy. The umpiring could be blamed... but thats not why we are facing 370/7.
None of the bowling efforts by the Indians on this tour so far are winning efforts. As of today they have conceded 44.58 runs/wicket on this tour. Unless we bring that down to 30, we won't win very much. We'll have to hope that we can stay afloat somehow and sneak in a result somewhere.
Its not the sort of bowling attack that will threaten any batting line up especially with RP as the senior bowler. That's what Ian Chappell means when he says India are "average to good" with the ball. The Aussies are probably "very good" with the ball (with Warne and McGrath they were probably "excellent").
Chandra
January 2, 2008
11:51 AM
Ya, the bowling overall was dreadful (whatever little i saw). I am so saddened that we are playing exactly the way i foreacast in my post a month ago.
kela
January 2, 2008
12:06 PM
Kumble has no clue about captaincy,did you see the way Dhoni had to go to Ishant Sharma's aid when he goofed up with his run-up twice in a row and the crowd was booing ?Indian team needs a Sreesanth to prop them up
Randeep Mangat
January 2, 2008
06:32 PM
In 2003-04, had Mother Teresa been alive, she would've felt the pain inflicted by Steve Bucknor to Indian team in the last SCG match, with series locked at 1-1. Many members of the current Indian team have disclosed in many informal interviews, how those wounds are still fresh in their minds. Former Indian Captain went on to say that some of the decisions were pretty straight forward & they reached a stage in the match when they lost confidence in Steve Bucknor completely.
Same thing happened yesterday. If you look in detail Phil Jaque's dismissal yesterday, you would see that Bucknor raised his finger only after Jaques walked off; otherwise I can bet Bucknor had no mood to give him out as well. Symond's nick was even audible from the stands. Its completely baffling to know how Bucknor could miss it.
It has to be one of the 3 reasons. Either he couldn't hear it due to Old age Or he doesn't like Indians. I hope it's the 1st option but I'm internally convinced that it's the 2nd one i.e. he doesn't like Indians or Indian Team.
I have many reasons or facts to prove that. I've lived & worked in Jamaica (where Bucknor lives). I met so many people in Jamaica who literally "hate" Indians. The main reason is that there are so many Indians who had come to Jamaica legally/illegally & took control of most of their businesses & left all the petty Jobs for Jamaicans. So internally they had this grudge against all Indians. I have many stories to prove that. So, the more I see Bucknor behaving with Indians, the more my Jamaican memories get refreshed. If someone remembers the last series (SCG test), after an aggressive appeal, the way Bucknor charged towards Parthiv Patel & the way he talked to him with pointed finger, anyone who has experience working in Foreign country would tell you, it was racial hatred. Its pretty strong word but unfortunately its true.
Some might say Cricket is a gentelman's game & we should respect all umpiring decisions no matter how harsh they are. I don't believe in that. After all, there are player's career & lives attached to these decisions. I've played for 10 years & can relate to it. I hope Indian team makes a stern complaint against Bucknor, take a stand & take him out of Elite umpire's list. His experience can be used to train other umpires but let's not let him spoil the game like this. Cricketing world will be lot better without him.
kela
January 3, 2008
03:40 AM
first of all the negroes are not native to the caribbean.they were slaves imported from africa to work in the plantations just like indian indentured laboruers.So indians have just as much right to live there as the negroes.And if indian are prospering -well thats just too bad so sad.
Secondly its obvious Steve hates indians,its just too bad the bcci doesnt have the guts of say the pcb who brought daryl hair's career to an end
smallsquirrel
January 3, 2008
06:19 AM
NEGROES?
what are we in, 1960?
kela, you are possibly the most ignorant man I have ever come across in my whole life.
kela
January 3, 2008
06:39 AM
no you're stupid..negro is still very much relevant..maybe you should read my post in the context it was meant
kela
January 3, 2008
06:39 AM
no you're stupid..negro is still very much relevant.it doesn't just because you say so
sm
January 3, 2008
07:48 AM
and I quote:
"Negro is an archaic racial term referring to people of high melanin content mainly of African origin. Prior to the shift in the lexicon of American and worldwide classification of race and ethnicity in the late 1960s, the appellation was accepted as a normal formal term both by those of African descent as well as non-African blacks. Now it is considered by many an ethnic slur."
I am a lingusist, kela... you are just a backward racist.
kela
January 3, 2008
07:54 AM
wth is a "lingusist" ..a new breed of langur ?
well they're so many terms i find discriminatory too ,like colored,african-american,asian-american...btw indians are supposed to be Caucasian but are they recognised as such ?
smallsquirrel
January 3, 2008
07:59 AM
kela the amount you don;t know would fill the annals of history.
a linguist is something you can look up on your beloved google... it is a profession.
and you don't get to decide for other groups what they find offensive or not. but since you think you can, let's do an experiment. I will personally fly you to washington DC and walk you to South East DC and you can call people negroes. I want to see how long it takes for you to get the shit kicked out of you. I bet about 30 seconds. I would pay good money to see that. You let me know, the offer stands firm.
kela
January 3, 2008
08:07 AM
i know what a linguist is but you obviously don't know how to spell it.
and i'd rather call them negroes on chat where i'm relatively safe behind a pc.
kela
January 3, 2008
08:15 AM
yes didnt know her name was history,i'm no linguist,it was a tight fit nevertheless
Chandra
January 3, 2008
08:17 AM
Yes Steve Bucknor has a problem with India...anyway...the team did not play well enough to deserve the last 4 wickets.....
Add your comment
(Or ping: http://desicritics.org/tb/7038)