Hayden and Hussey began a crucial afternoon session with extra caution, with the pitch wearing down near the footmark area, precisely where Kumble and Harbhajan were hitting with clever variations in pace and flight.

There was a lot of padding up, interspersed with the sweep, against Kumble particularly. Hayden reached his half-century from 101 balls and looked more comfortable as he progressed, while Indians looked towards the other end to gain a breakthrough.

At the other end, Hussey frustrated the Indians as a string of near misses allowed him to stay on. It was compounded after Benson replied in the negative to an lbw appeal from Anil Kumble when the batsman on 22, hit plumb standing on the backfoot. Yuvraj barely got his hands to a tough chance at mid-wicket, before Benson again said no to an RP Singh appeal when Hussey edged on 45 to Dhoni to a leg-side delivery.

Hussey moved on slowly, reaching his ninth Test half-century from 105 balls (six fours). Hayden got his opportunity to get level with Don Bradman, scoring his 29th Test hundred in 160 balls with 11 boundary hits, proclaiming his taste for Indian bowlers with yet another big knock on this series.

Hayden threw away his wicket—playing a reverse sweep that landed straight into Wasim Jaffer’s hands.

That was when it was necessary to up the run-rate and try and present a strong plinth for his side to take a call tomorrow morning.

Immediately, the Indians struck another blow, and this time Michael Clarke edged an attempted cut to Rahul Dravid and Symonds had to walk in and survive a strong lbw appeal against Kumble on his hat-trick ball.

... contd.