Australia in India, 2010

[jayakris]

Ah, that all makes sense now.. Should have remembered about Srikkanth as a selector. As for Hilditch, I know him very well. I remember him coming to India around 78-79.. I think that was the depleted Aussie side after the Kerry Packer business, which had a then unknown batsmen called Border, under captain Hughes - India still managed to struggle on and off though we won a couple of tests and drew the rest .. Hilditch was an OK opening batsman, if I remember correctly. I assume he is a big-shot Aussie selector now? Do I get extra credit? Jay

[prasen9]

Ah yes, he is indeed the head of the selection panel in Australia. Full points for the extra credit. I vaguely remember him. He started playing before I started following in earnest and I may have seen/followed the last part of his career. He was supposedly fond of hooking the short ball straight to the fielder.

[akmohanty]

wow, i always thought no one could ever come close to Don's average in any shape or form. sachin has come really close, atleast for a calendar year.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/spor ... 732596.cms

[Prashant]

I believe I might be originally responsible for the whole "Karthik has compromising photos of the selectors" trope. His continued selection has been incomprehensible to a lot of us (although I believe he has one or two defenders here).

[SriramP]

Having watched Pragyan Ojha in the outfield in this series, I feel he has improved his ground fielding. Nothing spectacular but he got the little things that matter right. That was a pleasant surprise. At his age, he had no business fielding the way he used to. Hopefully, he shows the same consistency in the future.

Exciting day of test cricket in the offing with the test and series interestingly poised. Go India! Push the Aussies to #5 and end the debate about India being the most debatable #1!

[ssp]

Pujara has just been dismissed for a brilliant 72. We need 60 more with 7 wickets in hand. We can't lose from here....surely. Just want a boring hour or so now so we can wrap this up without any further alarms. 56 needed...

[ssp]

Tendulkar & Dravid going very easily towards our target. Only 11 needed. Australia will be wondering how they lost a test after batting 1st & scoring 478 in their 1st inns.
2 needed and Tendulkar completes a brilliant 50. What a performance from everyone. Very pleased with Pujara's innings. 1 needed...
All the worry about 2nd inns chases in India are being overturned by this team. What a difference Zaheer's return has made to our bowling.

Sachin gets the winning runs. Much easier than anticipated chase. So a 2-0 win and i think this result pushes Australia down to 5th in the test rankings. They certainly didn't look anywhere near their usual standards. Their batting was poor in both 2nd inns and their bowling was not too difficult to handle.

Encouraging signs from Vijay, Pujara & Raina.

[suresh]

Classic Dravid. India needs two to win and Dravid plays out a maiden to Johnson.

[prasen9]

Solid win. Master decision by Dhoni to send in Pujara and not the somewhat out of form Dravid.

[prasen9]

Dhoni said this:

Vijay has always done well whenever given opportunities. He carried on this time.

Excellent job by Vijay. Note the he carried on this time. We hope he will carry on in future opportunities. If he wants to have a long career, he needs 1-2 big scores in the next 5 matches or so. Otherwise, it will be someone else. I hope he succeeds. He has had a good start. Dhoni continued:

It helps that he was batting with Tendulkar who is a great reader of the game and advices.

When will Dhoni be in that position? I was disappointed that Dhoni could not shepherd the tail and coax some runs out after Tendulkar got out. I hope in a couple of years when SRT, RSD, and VVSL will be gone, Dhoni will do that. One cannot expect that from Sehwag anyway given his character.

[ssp]

Dhoni's batting form has dropped recently. Our tail collapsed badly in our 1st inns in both tests.

The other problem was the easy starts our opening bowlers gave away every time. Zaheer was superb with the older ball, but no one really troubled Watson & Katich with the new ball.

India's approach to the chase was very positive. They knew that an older ball was going to offer more movement, so I'm sure Pujara was told to play his shots and by keeping the score moving so quickly, the pressure was on the Aussie bowlers. Ponting's field placing were very poor. Why did he have only 1 slip when they needed 10 wickets.

[prasen9]

What was very pleasing was that whenever they pitched short to him, Pujara pulled the ball and rolled his wrists over. Excellent technique. When Raina pulls sometimes your heart is in your mouth or whatever by the way the ball baloons up or hits his body. Maybe on hostile overseas wickets, Pujara will play better than the likes or Raina, Rohit or Vijay have done. I have the confidence that the troika mentioned will improve their games overseas but Pujara seems the best technically equipped one of the young lot.

[Kumar]

Scoring 200 odd runs in the 4th inning of a test match in india with such ease is awesome... and to win three straight test matches after losing the toss in india just shows that current indian team certainly deserves the number 1 ranking.. letz hope we can continue the same against NZ

[PKBasu]

I was on the long flight over from Newark to Singapore, so missed watching the final day live. But the first thing I did when I got home was watch the highlights! Marvellous to see Pujara live up to our expectations (I have been advocating his selection for more than a year now, and especially over the past 2-3 months). He has a pleasing, very correct technique -- the key feature of which is his immaculate footwork (unlike, say, Sehwag or Vijay who depend more on their eye). He lacks the elegance of Laxman or Vijay, or the breath-taking shot-making of Sehwag, but he is a solid batsman of the highest class. His stance -- like Dravid's -- is a bit awkward (with the feet very wide apart), and (again like Dravid) he uses the top-hand a lot more than the likes of Tendulkar, Ganguly and Laxman, which makes him slightly vulnerable to the mistimed defensive shot on the legside (especially to slower balls). But his willingness to pull/hook the short-ball every time he received one was a refreshing feature of his innings, and his cover drives, square-cuts and -drives, late cuts, on-drives and glances were all beautifully executed (as, of course, were the 3 pulled boundaries). That he got 72 runs off just 89 balls on the final day -- on a pitch that clearly was helping the bowlers (as Zaheer and Sreesanth showed in the morning) is all the more creditable. I think Pujara has cemented his place in the side for the next Test series -- and it is a crying shame that he is not in the ODI squad.

[prasen9]

I don't recall exactly who said it here, maybe PKB, but I have harbored these thoughts for a long time. I certainly agree with what Dhoni said here: http://www.cricinfo.com/india-v-austral ... 81434.html Tests should be played as much as possible at Kolkata, Mumbai, Chennai, Bengaluru, and Kanpur. These are our traditional test centers along with Delhi and if people cannot be bothered in the rest of the centers, let them have their extra ODIs or T20s. In Nagpur, I hear that the stadium is way outside the city. Maybe move things back to the old stadium and try it. Otherwise, give them their extra feed of ODIs. Maybe try out Hyderabad to see if they are better than Delhi.