3-1-3-1 and Ishant was off, Harbhajan came in along with Virender Sehwag at the other end but from 75/5 Brad Haddin and Mike Hussey had an enormous re-building process. Haddin, however, couldn’t last long falling prey to a clever piece of bowling by Harbhajan and a smart stumping by Dhoni down the leg-side. Haddin stepped out and tried to heave over leg-side but Harbhajan smartly fired the ball wide on leg-stick and Australia were 91/6 and without a recognised batting pair three balls past the half-way mark in their innings.

Harbhajan was outstanding in his eight over spell, bowling with a lot of air and teasing the batsmen with flight. But for the nine runs he conceded in his last over, Harbhajan would have had even more flattering figures. Mike Hussey held fort admirably and though he received support from Brett Lee in that 53 run-partnership, Australia were falling way too short of a decent total. Hussey reached his half-century from 68 balls with three fours but ran out of partners as Sreesanth and Ishant returned to finish the Australian innings in 43.1 overs for a paltry 159.

Lee came firing in but Sachin Tendulkar looked sublime with his cracking straight drives on either side of the stumps in an over that fetched three boundaries in four deliveries. India’s response wasn’t too intimidating losing Sehwag and surprise one-drop bat Pathan. Tendulkar on 24 was lucky when Keortzen refused to raise his finger to Stuart Clark’s appeal for a caught behind decision.

... contd.