Aussies v. India - ODI Tri series

[Donny]

4/254 with 5 overs to go.

Martyn is 84 and Bevan, 29.

[Donny]

Martyn went to 100 - 118 balls - from the last ball of the 39th. over and was bowled by the 1st. ball of the 40th. 5/282 with 5 balls to come.

Clarke off the mark first ball then Bevan holes out for 42. 6/283. Clarke is run out. 7/285. 1 ball to come. Bichel to face. Bowled.

4 wickets in the last over. Agarkar took 4/37.

[Donny]

Bracken starts his over. Wicket first ball !! Sehwag gone, l.b.w.

Second ball, to Laxman, was almost identical, in fact closer, and given not out. Wicket maiden.

Tendulkar hits Williams for a 2 and a four then is struck on the pad. Big appeal. Not out. Was closer than the other two !!

[Donny]

Bichel gets success from his second ball. Laxman for 21. 2/49 from 10 overs.

[tazza2000]

oooooh how you'd hate to be sehwag right now

Double Ducks V Australia

[tazza2000]

Tendulkar OUT!
Bowled by clarke in his 2nd over
Tendulkar goes for 68 off 76 balls
Huge Wicket for the Australians!

[tazza2000]

Dravid gets his 50 off 61 balls

Yuvraj Singh gone for 9 off 15 balls
Clarke has his 2nd wicket in his fourth over

Indians are in trouble with a mammoth RR to chase

[tazza2000]

CLARKE STRIKES AGAIN!
Dravid is goooone for 59 off 70 balls
BiG wIcKeT fOr ThE aUsSiEs!

India 172/5 chasing Australia 286/8 with 15 ov. remaining

[tazza2000]

Bracken gets Kaif for 10 off 15 balls

India look a mess, not the side we saw a week ago, while Australia are playing like world champions even with it's 2nd tier bowling attack

BRACKEN AGAIN! Agarkar gone for 2 off 10 balls

Bracken and Williams have really come of age in this tournament which is the most important thing for the Australians

BRACKEN AGAIN AGAIN!! Harbhajan Singh gone for 6 off 7 balls

Australia are now eyeing the bonus point if they can bowl India out for 228 or less and Amazing turnaround from just 6 days ago

India 187/8 with 10 ov. remaining

[tazza2000]

Clarke dismisses Kumble for 6 off 10 balls

Magnificant stuff by both Clarke and Bracken as they both wind up their 10 overs
4 wickets a piece by the youngsters

Clarke 10 0 42 4
Bracken 10 2 29 4

India are 204/9 and need to reach 228 to stop Australia from getting the bonus point

[tazza2000]

Game, Set, Match AUSTRALIA

Australia will walk away with 5pts while India go home with 0

Marvellous display by the Australians all round, who really taught the World Cup pretenders a lesson today

Punter questioned his Batting lineup after the loss last week and they rose to the challenge, in particular Martyn and also Symonds and Bevan

Men of the Match go to....D.MARTYN, N.BRACKEN and M.CLARKE

Australia now regain their rightful place atop the TVS points table and India and particularly their captian have some thinking to do

Australia 286/8 d India 209 by 77 runs

[Donny]

Thanks for those reports, tazza. Good stuff. It was getting quite cold here so I retired to bed to watch the game.

How valuable is Adam Gilchrist !?? And what a team player. I'd choose him ahead of Sacred Sach, any day.

Last night, as he often does, he threw a spanner into the works of the Indian game plan. When opening bowlers run into a thrashing machine like Gilly, they need to be of extremely high quality not to lose it.

Zaheer Khan is rated fairly highly but his first over went for 14, albeit including the prized wicket of Hayden. After 3, he had 1/37.

Hard to know if it was in India's plans to open with part timer, Sehwag, from the other end or if Gilly's onslaught forced a change in thinking. The thought wasn't all that bad but the choice of bowler was. Surely Harby or Kumble were the options ? Sehwag went for 14.

A start like Gilly and Ponting provided - and this was not a good wicket for batting - set it up for Martyn, Symonds and Bevo to tick the scoreboard over.

You'll never see Gilly get a start like that and then dig in to rack up a personal century like Tendulkar did in the first game. He's the ultimate team man.

Bracken certainly is bringing big smiles to the Aussie leadership. A wicket in the first over again and should have had Laxman, next ball. His very recent developement of an inswinger to the right handers is reaping rewards.

Harvey bowled very well in Australia's demolition of New Zealand but was replaced by Michael Clarke for this match because of the wicket. He didn't let anyone down and is making every post a winner.

[Donny]

The confidence to lead

The Wisden Verdict by S Rajesh

In the end, the better team won. The Australians had copped it for their inability to play the turning ball at Gwalior, but on a pitch with more pace and bounce, they clearly showed that they have the ammunition to carry on and win the title, despite the absence of three leading bowlers.

John Buchanan has often talked about the Australian approach of instilling in every team member the confidence to lead. That was evident in the Australian batting performance, and again in the field. The loss of three of their top batsmen fairly early in the piece would have led most teams to take a defensive approach. Not the Australians, though. Their incredible confidence levels shone through in the manner in which Andrew Symonds bludgeoned the ball to all parts.

Then, when Symonds left, Damien Martyn, who notched up his half-century almost unnoticed, took over with a perfect lesson in pacing an innings. His first fifty took 84 balls, the next one a mere 34. Especially memorable was the manner in which he handled Zaheer Khan and Anil Kumble during the slog overs, caressing straight-drives which sped to the fence, and lofting an effortless on-driven six off Kumble. It was exquisite batting from one of the most graceful batsmen in the game today.

India's batting effort wasn't quite as top-notch, though. They were lucky to negotiate the new-ball attack with the loss of only two wickets – the number of times VVS Laxman in particular, and Sachin Tendulkar, played and missed early on, India could easily have been four or five down in the first ten overs. Having negotiated that torrid spell, the rest of the batsmen should have made a much better fist of it.

Tendulkar's was a strangely patchy innings: he was anything but convincing early on, and showed signs of coming into his own only against the lesser bowlers. With the Australian tour coming up, his form remains a worry. India's best batsman of the day was easily Rahul Dravid. As impressive as his batsmanship were his tactical skills earlier in the day.

He started off by opening the bowling attack with a spinner. It was a sensible gamble, considering the manner in which Ajit Agarkar had been mauled in his first spell at Gwalior. Dravid showed conviction in his plan as well, continuing with the spin attack despite Virender Sehwag being tonked for 14 in his first over: the fault was in the implementation, not in the tactic itself, Dravid believed, and he was proved right when Harbhajan Singh, and then Anil Kumble, tied down the Australians after Zaheer Khan's early profligacy.

David also impressed with his attacking field placements early on. Even when Gilchrist was on the rampage – the 50th run in the Australian innings was the first one scored by a batsman other than Gilchrist – Dravid attacked Ponting with a short leg, while Martyn had to contend with a short leg and a silly point against Harbhajan. It was imaginative captaincy, which shouldn't get lost just because the result didn't go India's way.

Dravid's tactic of using Agarkar later in the innings paid off delightfully too. Often in the past, Agarkar has struggled to cope with the pressures of bowling with the field restrictions in place. Given the cushion of a slightly more defensive field, he reveled, and the confidence of having bowled an excellent first spell showed at the death too, when he speared in those yorkers. It might be difficult to play three seamers in India, but overseas, Agarkar is clearly the ideal foil to Zaheer and Ashish Nehra.

This defeat, though, will again open up the debate of the virtues of playing an extra batsman and handing the wicketkeeping duties to Dravid. Whether it is the right approach forward depends on whether the team management, and Dravid himself, believes that is the long-term goal of the team. If the idea is to groom a wicketkeeper who can also contribute with the bat, then one defeat against the world champions should not force the Indians to abandon that goal.

[JLC]

India made a stupid move by opening the bowling with Sherwag. To me that was the main difference in the game and a tactical blunder. They were forced to bowl their trump card in Singh earlier than they would have liked.

Australia deserved their win but that move is up there with playing Cloke as a forward as the dumbest move of the year.

jlc

[Donny]

"The over before I got Tendulkar out, I turned to Punter and just said I'd get him a wicket next over. It was more arse than class, I think!"

Michael Clarke on his surprising scalp of Sachin Tendulkar during the fourth TVS Cup match.

What do I keep saying about positive thinking, folks ??