From the start, the pitch played true to batsmen and the ball came on nicely to the bat. Australian bowlers, barring first-change Shane Watson, could not get any appreciable movement.

Sehwag played in his usual fashion with slashes, chops and flicks off the pads to get runs while debutant Vijay, pitch-forked into international cricket after having played only 21 first class games, looked composed and compact in his defence.

Sehwag struck Johnson for two boundaries in his first over while Vijay, who showed hardly any nerves, cover-drove Lee beautifully for a four to set the tone.

Aussie captain Ricky Ponting brought in Krejza just on the hour, replacing Watson after two overs to enable the medium-pacer to change ends, and Sehwag greeted the new bowler with a lofted four and a huge six over long on off successive balls.

Sehwag completed his second half century of the series with a single to square leg off Krejza in 45 balls. Tendulkar and VVS Laxman ensured that India came back strongly into the game in the post-lunch session as the two experienced batsmen fetched the runs easily.

Commencing after lunch, Tendulkar and Laxman, who is playing his 100th Test, were kept quiet for a while by pacer Mitchell Johnson and debutant off spinner Jason Krejza.

After settling down, Tendulkar - 16 at lunch – began opening out by slog-sweeping Krejza and then lofting the slow bowler for two successive fours to bring up the 150.

The first hour after lunch yielded 44 runs in 13 overs. Laxman struggled with his timing initially despite having come into this match with unbeaten scores of 200 and 59 in the third Test at Delhi.

... contd.