India was in the driver’s seat at the close of the First Day’s Play of the Third Test of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy in Delhi today. India finished the day at 296-3 and has certainly left Australia at their wits end with the day’s play progression. Gautam Gambhir was the star today striking third centurion knock of his career and second in this series.

Gambhir slammed his first century against Bangladesh four years back. It was a very long wait which could have soon turned unforgiven by the BCCI before his second century. Wasim Jaffer, known for his inconsistent play has often been preferred over Gambhir and it was high time that Gambhir secured his place in the test side. He is unbeaten at 149* and more fireworks are expected tomorrow. His performance becomes all the more special since this is his second century in 9 days and on home ground.

India had lost two wickets at the score of 27. Sehwag and Dravid were dismissed cheaply by Lee and Johnson and that was the moment of sunshine for the visitors. Gambhir displayed extraordinary strength and patience at a testing time and the Indian innings took off from there. Tendulkar was equally caustic scoring his 68 in the most ruthless way by sending the ball to all ends of the field. They put together 130 runs before Johnson struck again and sent Tendulkar back. Laxman (54*) joined the bonhomie and the two men forged an unbeaten 139-run stand which has left Australia high and dry.

The BCCI announced felicitating the Fab Three: Sourav Ganguly (for his last international appearance), Sachin Tendulkar (for crossing 12000-mark and becoming Highest Test Runs Scorer) and VVS Laxman (completing 100th test) in the Fourth Test Match in Nagpur.

One more announcement came from BCCI regarding felicitation the marvelous opening duo of the ODI cricketing history and one of the finest batting pairs – Sachin Tendulkar and Sourav Ganguly on the occasion of ‘Platinum Jubilee’ Test Match against England late this December in India.

All the Australian talks of pre-match analysis and learning from mistakes proved to be hogwash as they revisited their Mohali nightmare. Today’s crisis had stark resemblance to conditions in second test. They had no effective spinner to beat the Indian batsmen, their pacemen failed to swing the ball and they looked completely beaten after the crushing defeat in the last test. The furore created on Bishan Singh Bedi giving spin tips to Australians went futile. Jason Krejza has been kept out of the game and the responsibility falls on Cameron White who so far has been ineffective. It is tough to recover from a mortal defeat of 320 runs and Australia’s heydays appear to be fables of past now.

Comments

Add New RSS

3.25 Copyright (C) 2007 Alain Georgette / Copyright (C) 2006 Frantisek Hliva. All rights reserved."

Newer news items:

Older news items: