It had to come at some point on Sunday night. The matters that Ishant Sharma precipitated in the afternoon took the maximum time to be crystallised, and though it didn’t have the essence of a bonus point, the end result should provide satisfaction to this bunch of young boys who were being experimented in the laboratory of Indian cricket team Down Under.

India leapfrogged to the top of the table with eight points when Andrew Symonds bowled a wide and Rohit Sharma raised his hands in delight at crossing 160. But this five-wicket win with 25 balls to spare was more about shattering the myth of Australian domination.

That Australia played with their full side makes the victory even sweeter for this 49,369 audience with majority of Indian supporters and they were third time lucky as India finally broke the big MCG jinx on this tour. Rohit Sharma and skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni ended matters in the most sedate manner, adopting the safety first approach with an unbroken 58-run partnership for the sixth wicket.

But it was really the lanky kid from Delhi who bowled with a grumbling pain in his stomach and bigger complications with his front foot and the white line. Ishant spectacularly set up this victory with his first two spells of 5-0-34-1 and 3-1-3-1 from the same Southern stand end that had where started with his first two overs going for 24 runs. Ishant returned to add one more victim in his last seven-ball to earn his maiden man of the match award—though Australians have a right to moan that situations would have been different had they got a couple of umpiring decisions right.

... contd.