Michael Clarke’s three wickets in the penultimate over to get rid of Harbhajan Singh and RP Singh off the first two balls, and off the fifth delivery to dismiss Ishant giving Australia the match would be encrypted in scoresheets as much as another part-time option, Andrew Symonds, who got a similar haul of wickets to his name. But a more critical contribution to this Australian victory rose from their conscience that allowed Symonds to take note of the general incompetence of umpires and ask for a caught behind appeal against Rahul Dravid when there was clearly no bat involved and Clarke, who claimed he took a clean catch off Sourav Ganguly’s edge at second slip, when the fact remained otherwise.

Those, particularly the last one, were the turning points of the game as India, who looked wobbly in their bid to save this match got working a 61-run fourth-wicket partnership between Dravid and Ganguly.

The latter got his fourth start in as many innings in this series and looked the most confident with his front foot play, and determined as well — by not raising his bat after reaching his half-century in 51 balls with nine boundaries, signaling his job remains unfinished—but was done in.

Dravid played the sheet anchor role and was looking rock-solid despite a dropped chance by Symonds on 18, though the fact also remains that Benson failed to spot a no-ball off Mitchell Johnson.

Things moved smoothly and safe before two bad decisions — first Dravid and then Ganguly — on either side of an out-of-form bat in the middle effectively sealing the fate of the match. Yuvraj Singh failed to stand up when the situation demanded the most of him, edging a Symonds delivery and dismissed for no score. M S Dhoni, who had looked equally out of sorts as Yuvraj at number six and Wasim Jaffer at the top, took a valiant stance for 117 minutes for his 35 before washing it off by not offering any shot to Symonds.

... contd.