More Spine But Still Jelly Legs

Dhoni and Kohli conspire
to drop Warner at 126

What do you do when you've had the worst possible day in Test cricket?

For most, you toughen up, you start with your best bowlers, you set defensive fields but with men who might take advantage when a mistake is made and you review your bowling plans and reset your bowlers to bowl where they are told ... and you have your best men in their best positions.

That's not entirely how India started the day.

Sure, Zaheer Khan and Ishant Sharma opened the bowling but that's about it. Too much was too full and driven sumptuously or too short and taken square or too wide which just made things dead easy for Dave Warner and Ed Cowan. For the first hour, Indian captain MS Dhoni did little to change things, apart from rotating his bowlers to send up their own variety of rubbish. No fieldsmen out into Warner's killing grounds but when Rahul Dravid left the field for a comfort stop, Virat Kohli came into first slip. Kohli, easily India's best fielder survived until the 35th over when Warner finally refused to use the middle of his bat and edged to Kohli's right and he dropped a diving catch which should have been Dohni's. The captain called the catch early but didn't move. Dravid, grabber, grasper or holder of more than 750 first class and international catches (most in the slips strangely), was back at first slip at the start of the next over.

Ed Cowan reaches fifty

An over later, Ed Cowan would have been run out on a tight two taken to Sachin Tendulkar at deep cover but the Little Master no longer has a young man's shoulders and his throw was barely more than a lob. At drinks, 60 had been added in the hour and the openers had raised a double hundred stand. Yadav came on after the break, around the wicket as Bill Lawry had been calling for and moved one from the cracks inside a gap in Cowan's defence that was only a ball wide and rattled his stumps. 214 was a handy start and raised the interesting statistic that in between Cowan's dismissal in Sydney and here in Perth, Australia had lost 1-836. Yes boys and girls, we can call that domination. In the next over, the beginner Kumar was back and jagged one back up and into Warner, hitting him an inconvenient blow on his left elbow. Shaun Marsh was attacked on his leg stump for a while and scored one four but a second was an inside edge that laughed at leg stump on its way to the boundary. In the same over, Yadav invited drives and then took Marsh's edge to a diving VVS Laxman with a ball slightly shorter on a length. For Marsh, this was really no better. Cricket can be a cruel game.

Ponting bowled by Yudav

Ricky Ponting could have been expected to have been in great nick after Sydney but his early innings problems haven't gone away and it was Yadav, who has several times ripped wickets out in bunches, who got him. He first served up fruit for Ponting's sideboard - a short long hop outside off stump which Ponting cracked past forward point - and then a few balls later yorked Ponting and knocked middle stump from the ground with a ball that moved in enough. Ponting's head was falling to off, his front leg locked and his back leg in the Dravid position. Nothing has changed, a illustration of just how damned good Ponting is that he can ever overcome these new additions from the last few years and score any runs. It was a first choice for a fast bowler's highlights reel.

Warner's 150 came in the next over from a drive into deep cover but when lunch came, India had done enough through Yadav to square the series while Australia added 107.

Zaheer Khan farewell's Haddin

After lunch, Warner continued his personal assault on India's best, smashing Sharma twice through the off side and Khan through and over point but signs were that he was beginning to force his shots and within range of his highest first class score, he took one swing too many and Yadav held a beauty running back at long on. Sharma might claim the victory but at what cost. Khan then removed Michael Clarke and Brad Haddin in the space of four deliveries, both nurdling balls outside their off stump to Dhoni and Australia had lost 3-13 in five overs and all the damage done since lunch because the ball was kept on appropriate lengths and lines. Those that might see Warner as no more than a T20 flogger might remember that Matt Hayden was for many seasons wearing an a Baggy Green and was simply a flat track bully. Regardless, batting looked a lot harder when the Indian bowlers were no longer in fear of their lives and not all of that was because of widening cracks in Cal Sutherland's party dance floor.

Drinks came as a relief but after Peter Siddle and Mike Hussey added 36, Hussey lifted a cut shot into Sehwag's hands in the gully, giving Kumar his first Test scalp and then Yadav bowled Siddle with ball that held its line on a good length and hit the top of off stump. It was another example of Siddle's hard work as a cricketer that he has made himself into a reliable tailender. Ryan Harris was out hooking - never would have happened in my day - popping the easiest of catches to Gautum Ghambir at square leg and giving Yadav his first five wicket collection in his short four Test career.

With tea extended and Mitchell Starc hitting some handsome drives, Hilfenhaus had a few sighters and then plonked Sehwag down Kohli's throat at a short long on to end the innings. Australia's 7-113 capitulation in the session probably matters little, as losing when you lead by 208 on the first innings is as rare as Ian Healy speaking common sense. Special mention to Yadav who bagged five and held a very good catch to get rid of Warner.

The frantic pace of the game makes a picnic tomorrow afternoon a viable opportunity to impress the wife.

India's second innings started with at least 20% of the television audience expecting six wickets to fall in the last session and the experience of the frail Indian line up supported that view. Gambhir and Sehwag cut down the risks and played like they intended to stay for a while and they saw off the opening bowlers and their ten overs. Starc, yet to assert himself at this level, sent a short ball at pace from Gambhir's leg stump and up into his visor with only his second delivery and Gambhir did well to avoid being hit but the shoulder of his bat sent the ball to Hussey who dived forward in the gully to take the catch. Siddle, likewise, cleaned up the frazzled Sehwag, a short ball lifting and leaving him and Haddin showing how keepers should cover the distance between first slip and themself ... note to MS Dhoni.

Tendulkar couldn't believe it

The great man came in to trouble, as he has all series and almost all of the last year. Clarke, not wanting to allow any pressure to come off Tendulkar and the woefully out of form Dravid, replaced Starc after his one successful over and bought back Harris. It was a decision he reversed shortly after, bringing Starc on from the other end for an immediate success when a a big inswinger zoomed in from middle stump and hit him marginally in front of the top and outside of leg stump. DRS would have still seen it out but it was still a narrow and brave decision from umpire Dar and it attracted a rare display of anger from Tendulkar who shook his head in disbelief all the way to the sheds. India's case against DRS has always been that it's not accurate enough, but then again, neither are umpires but its a point which shouldn't just be dismissed as though Indian's are Luddites. All cricketers who have been about the place for long enough to find T20 cricket an impertinence, will know that there are times when lbw decisions supposedly nicking the stumps or tipping a bail according to the technology just don't look out based on the many years of standing at slip or watching down the TV barrel. In the days before DRS, very few umpires would have fingered Tendulkar today.

For Starc, it was both a marvellous repayment of faith from his skipper and one which had been delayed. There was nothing wrong with Clarke playing the gamble and he improved on that decision by knowing not to waste any more time. If at no other time of his captaincy career you have seen his acumen, this was a fine example of it.

Hilfenhaus came back for his second spell and it took just seven deliveries before VVS Laxman followed his lead and played a long way from his body, realised it too late and couldn't take enough off the bat off once he realised he'd been suckered. The catch was dropping when Marsh fell forward to take it at third slip. All the while, the ball was hooping out from Hilfenhaus and in from Starc, with the leftie having the added advantage of height and pace. Clarke stood at slip with nothing but easy options, like a fat man at a pizza eating contest.

Rahul Dravid is still fighting.

Starc, Siddle and Hussey all had spells at Dravid and Kohli and even Hussey had a two over spell need the end before Harris came back for one more two over burst at the end. He twice beat Kohli cold outside the off stump: one of them snorting up past the batsman's gloves. Siddle, the uber-comptetitor bowled a fabulous four over spell to end the day, clearly after the scalp of Dravid. It was only at the death he faded.

Despite all the attention from the Australians, Dravid and Kohli stopped the rot for at least the last 12 overs. Dravid looked better but his technical problems are a long way from over. Best not to write off a champion, even when the evidence is compelling and in Kohli, India have a future champion and one who improves with every innings ... but ... 120 behind, the top order gone and the bottom order as strong as wet tissue paper and three days left against a strong attack which has little work to do to gain its success ... well, defeat is an inevitability and if the pitch isn't being watered by lunch time it will be a surprise.

I guess if you play four fast bowlers you expect to win inside three days and spinners aren't needed. So it has proven.

Still, stranger things have happened. If you watch enough Test cricket, you'll learn that's a truth, not a catchphrase.