When the Indian openers entered the field, the stage was set for a perfect start to the India-Australia series. With Sachin Tendulkar and Virender Sehwag in the middle and the pitch playing easy, the target of 293 looked challenging but not quite insurmountable.

Several roles were up for grabs: the plot needed a flamboyant trailblazer, a mature character artist and a few cameos. And the names in the Indian line-up fitted the script’s requirements. However, with the scorecard reading 186 for six at one point, it was clear that the stars had not quite played their parts.

But just when the audience was losing interest in the show, the extras unexpectedly took centrestage. They snatched the script and started mouthing the lines that others had fumbled on.

Harbhajan Singh and Praveen Kumar were the last-minute show stealers as they gave the Sunday crowd their money’s worth, even though their two-man show ended in heartbreak. With their unorthodox batting, they almost did the impossible as their 83-run partnership for the seventh wicket saw India’s winning equation getting reduced from 84 off 54 balls to just 9 runs off the last over.

But that’s when the young Aussie pacer, Peter Siddle, held his nerve. With his second ball he dismissed Harbhajan and later kept his cool to give Australia a 4-run win. Eventually, India fell just a stroke short of victory in a game that they seemed to be losing by a mile at one stage.

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