Friday, December 14, 2012
Virender Sehwag and Sachin Tendulkar both lost their middle stumps to James Anderson
After the first day in Nagpur it was tricky to know which side was on top. Twenty-four hours later there was a clear answer, after another world-class display from James Anderson removed India's brittle top order to leave them tottering on 87 for 4 at the close - a scoreline that included failures for Virender Sehwag and Sachin Tendulkar - in reply to England's 330.
Debutant Joe Root, the youngest player in the England side who compiled a outstanding 73, and Graeme Swann, the oldest with a lively half-century, had done the bulk of the scoring for the first part of the day but throughout England's long occupation of the crease - 145 overs - the one cry going up was 'wait for Sehwag', a player rarely dictated to by conditions. In Anderson, though, England have a bowler who is also able to transcend a pitch.With his second delivery to Sehwag he produced a wicked inswinger which, unusually for a Test opener, beat the outside edge to take out middle stump. It was high-class pace bowling; it is an obvious thing to say that batsmen are most vulnerable when they start, but it takes great skill from a bowler to take advantage in such style. While it was not an immediate end to India's hopes, Sehwag's early departure ensured that England, even when they weren't taking wickets, would have been confident of controlling the game.
The pitch was again the focus of much attention and there was just a hint during the final session that it was starting to play a few more tricks - albeit slow ones. England's spinners, Swann and Monty Panesar, found a little more purchase than their India counterparts but that may just have been because they bowled better.
Swann got one to turn and bounce at Cheteshwar Pujara although replays showed it had come off elbow rather than glove towards short leg. That, though, should take nothing away from the brilliance of Ian Bell's catch, low to his left. Root had started the innings as bat-pad but, after he failed to stay down for a half-chance offered by Pujara, the role was given back to Bell. The position needs to be filled by the best fielder for the role.
Pujara's departure led to a raucous welcome for Tendulkar but he was never comfortable at the crease. Panesar ripped consecutive deliveries past his outside edge before his other nemesis in the England side, Anderson, removed him for the ninth time in Tests in his first over back in the attack. Another tick for Alastair Cook.
Tendulkar, caught on the crease, got an inside edge into the stumps having been caught playing off the back foot when everything to date in the match has told batsmen to get forward. Anderson had become the most successful bowler against Tendulkar in Test cricket. There is one more innings in this series for Tendulkar, then who knows.
Gautam Gambhir, meanwhile, played what is becoming his template innings: a couple of run-out scares, a few well-timed off-side boundaries and then a wasteful end. Anderson did not even need to work him over, instead Gambhir played a half-hearted drive to edge to Matt Prior. One over later Anderson was given a break after a spell of 4-1-3-2. A case when figures don't lie.
Although not as dramatic a session as when India collapsed on the third evening in Mumbai or fourth afternoon in Kolkata it could prove just as telling. It was the situation that England managed to avoid during their innings, fully justifying the grafting approach which continued on the second morning.
Root's highly accomplished stay, which began shortly before tea on the first day and included a 102-run partnership with Prior, had spanned 229 deliveries when he finally gave a return catch to Piyush Chawla in the afternoon session. His half-century had come from 154 balls and even the loss of two quick wickets did not shake his concentration. If anything, it prompted a few more attempts at innovation, with some deft paddles and sweeps that would have made Graham Thorpe proud.
Swann, meanwhile, played a priceless innings to ensure that England did not fritter away their position, which looked possible at 242 for 7, and he dominated as much as anyone else had managed. He twice lofted boundaries over deep midwicket against the spinners before lunch and after the interval he became ever-more aggressive, but selectively so rather than wild hacking.
He deposited Jadeja over long-on for the first six of the match and after Root fell, closing the face as he tried to aim through the leg side, Swann targeted the straight boundaries to reach his first half-century since his career-best 85 against South Africa, at Centurion, in 2009.
England had resumed on 199 for 5 and the familiar pattern of dead-batted blocks was the order of the day. After an early burst from Ishant Sharma it was all spin, which prompted both batsmen to remove their helmets in favour of England caps, Prior's slightly more worn and sweat-stained than the crisp, fresh-out-of-packet version Root was wearing. This really could have been Test cricket out of the 1980s in the subcontinent.
Steadily, though, England did begin to make useful progress. Any width was latched on to by both players as Root cut Chawla through point and Prior repeated the effort against Jadeja and another took him to his fifty. Curiously, both Jadeja and, more so, Chawla, were given a bowl before Pragyan Ojha, but in the end the breakthrough came from the man who now appears the fourth-choice spinner having begun the series tipped to be the major threat.
R Ashwin switched his line to around the wicket and floated a straight delivery past Prior's outside edge. Prior was aghast that he had managed to miss the delivery while Ashwin's celebrations were those of relief as much as joy. India manufactured back-to-back wickets as Dhoni, in one of his more alert and innovative pieces of captaincy in what has been a passive series for him, immediately withdrew Ashwin from the attack in favour of Sharma, who promptly trapped Tim Bresnan lbw with reverse swing.
Sharma, though, could not bowl long spells and the movement he found reinforced the feeling Dhoni would have been better served with another seamer. How he must be wishing he had someone as good as Anderson.
Batsmen put Australia on top
Australia 4 for 299 (Hughes 86, Clarke 70*, Warner 57, Welegedara 3-99) v Sri Lanka
Scorecard and ball-by-ball details
Scorecard and ball-by-ball details
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Australian spectators have been spoiled over the past few weeks. In Adelaide, Australia piled on 482 runs on the first day against South Africa, and at the WACA the following week 12 wickets fell on the opening day. But the start of the series against Sri Lanka took a much more meandering course, as first Phillip Hughes and David Warner, then Michael Clarke and Michael Hussey, steered the Australians through the day safely to reach stumps at 4 for 299. It was a good day for the Australians, but by the standards set in the South African series, a somewhat muted one.
Apart from the occasional arresting moment - Mahela Jayawardene's leaping catch to dismiss Shane Watson, for example - nearly everything about the day was subdued. The pitch didn't offer the bowlers a lot of assistance, although the Sri Lankans didn't have the pace and bounce to make best use of what was there; the batsmen accumulated rather than obliterated; and even the crowd of 6221 was lacklustre, given that there was a special lunchtime farewell for Tasmania's finest, Ricky Ponting.
But that's Test cricket. Nearly 300 in a day was a fine outcome for Australia, and Sri Lanka need to find some sort of spark to ensure they are not gradually chiselled out of the match. Quick wickets on the second day would do it, but by the end of the first, Clarke and Hussey were rarely looking troubled. At stumps, Clarke was on 70, continuing his outstanding summer, and Hussey was on 37, and the only hint of discomfort was Clarke's hobbling after being struck a painful blow on the thigh by a delivery from Shaminda Eranga.
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The Clarke-Hussey partnership reached triple-figures in the final over of the day and as they have so often, the two men were constructing a middle-order fortress. At least this time, they had a solid base to work from, having come together at 4 for 198. Their partnership began when Hughes missed the chance to mark his return to Test cricket with a century. On 86, he was bowled when Chanaka Welegedara rolled the fingers on an offcutter and tickled the ball off the inside edge of the bat and on to the stumps.
It was an opportunity missed for Hughes, but his comeback was still very encouraging, and not since Shaun Marsh scored a hundred on debut had an Australian No.3 made as many in an innings. Hughes had been powerful through the off side, with his trademark cuts and also some crisp cover-drives, but he was also able to pick up singles through the leg side using his off-stump stance.
He cleared the boundary once, when he came down the pitch to Rangana Herath and smashed him over long-on, and his half-century came up from his 121st delivery with a square drive for three. He was lucky to survive on 77 when he slashed at Welegedara, the only bowler to take a wicket on the first day, and was caught behind off a no-ball. The reprieve wasn't too costly for the Sri Lankans, but it typified a disappointing day for them.
Hughes and David Warner had both played well in the first session until a mix-up in the last over before lunch ended Warner's hopes of a second Hobart hundred after his innings against New Zealand last year. Warner pushed Tillakaratne Dilshan to short cover and took off before stopping, only to see Hughes run through and complete the run while Angelo Mathews threw to the bowler's end.
It ended Warner's innings for 57 from 89 deliveries. He had struck eight boundaries and was especially strong through the off side, driving through cover when the seamers overpitched. Warner and Hughes had come together after Ed Cowan, on 4, skied a catch to mid-on when he tried to pull Welegedara. That left Australia at 1 for 18, hardly the start Clarke hoped for when he chose to bat on a pitch with some green patches.
The Sri Lankan seamers found the occasional edge, including one in the first over when Cowan was nearly taken low to the ground at slip off Nuwan Kulasekara, and a couple of others that whizzed past the stumps. But it wasn't until later in the day when Shane Watson, in his first innings at No.4, drove at Welegedara that an edge produced a result for Sri Lanka.
Watson was done by the angle across him and his thick edge flew to the vacant third slip region, but from second slip Jayawardene hurled himself to his right and plucked a one-handed take that must have been close to the finest of his 190 Test catches. It was the kind of spark that Sri Lanka required. They finished the day needing something special to lift them again.
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