Steve Waugh stands alone

For some reason, as I sit down to write this report, I recalled a mail sent to me, by an Indian girl in Melbourne, Australia, at the end of day two of the Calcutta Test.

'Why did they have to do this to me? Tomorrow morning, I am going to phone in sick -- I can't go to office and face the taunts and jeers of my colleagues any more. Before this series began, I had boasted to my friends that our team would fight the Aussies. I didn't even say we would win, I only promised them a good fight. Now, I can't even look them in the eye, is this all we get for the support we have given this team so constantly, down the years?'

She doesn't have to take sick leave any more, does she? In fact, she -- and many more like her -- will probably go in to work even on their off days, stepping out with a strut and a swagger. For whatever else happens in course of the last day of this most eventful Test match, one thing is for sure -- the two teams have fought on equal terms throughout, and in the process produced cricket at its very very best.

Sairaj Bahutule and Nilesh Kulkarni batted on this morning -- as much, I suspect, to close the window a bit more on the Aussies in terms of overs left in the game, as to give Sourav Ganguly the choice of roller to use this morning.

Sairaj batted competently, Nilesh Kulkarni played like you would expect a number eleven to, and between them, they faced 11 overs this morning before Nilesh Kulkarni finally padded up at a Miller delivery on the stumps, to end India's innings on 501, 110 ahead of Australia on the first innings.

Mathew Hayden, who before he walked out to open the Australian innings had already edged Mark Taylor's aggregate of 513 against Pakistan in 1998 to record the highest aggregate by an Australian in a three Test series, continued his amazing form on tour at the start of the Aussie response. It was obvious, right from the outset, that the visitors had decided to make a push for a win -- both openers signalled their aggressive intent right from the first ball.

At the other end, Michael Slater, with a bad tour thus far, seemed to have decided that he would go down with all guns blazing. The second ball that Harbhajan Singh bowled to him (the offie took the ball after just one over of seam from Sourav Ganguly) was blasted back over his head for a huge six, Slater coming nimbly down the track to make the hit possible.

Immediately, the contest was on, the offie settling into an immaculate length and holding his own against two batsmen looking to take him on. Nilesh Kulkarni took over from Zahir Khan at the other end, but at lunch, Australia went in with 69 runs on the board off just 16 overs, and both openers batting on 34 apiece -- a very, very good start.

The post lunch session began with some early drama. Harbhajan produced an arm ball that had Slater, dancing down again, beaten. Samir Dighe, who thus far has had a nightmare behind the sticks, let the ball bounce over his head and down to third man for four byes -- in the process, missing out on another stumping.

The Aussie openers stuck to their gameplan. Beaten time and again, they shrugged off the pressure and kept playing their shots. And with the score going past 80, the Indian attack was beginning to show the first signs of wilting, when, for once, outstanding fielding produced the breakthrough. Nilesh Kulkarni pitched one outside off to Mathew Hayden, who went down on one knee -- a position he has assumed so many times in this Test match that it seems a wonder he even bothers to get up again -- and swung, hard. A little extra bounce, however, forced the miscue, the ball went high in the air and Zahir Khan, racing in from the midwicket boundary, flung himself forward to hold a superb catch as the ball dipped down on him.

Australia promoted Gilchrist up the order, to number three. The idea was obviously to have him blast the bowling around -- an hour of him at the crease, and Australia could well have batted itself into a position from where a win was possible. As against that, Gilchrist after his blistering assault in Bombay has scores of 0, 0 and one to his name -- confidence would have been on an all-time low, and it was moot whether he could actually do the deed his team needed. One of those moves a captain makes which, when it comes off, has him looking like a genius.

This one didn't. Right from the first ball he faced, it was apparent that Gilchrist's confidence was shot to bits. And Harbhajan, who appears to have a certain bloodthirsty quality about him, harried him with a series of off breaks and arm balls before finally firing one down on off and middle on a very full length to take Gilchrist on the pad and have him walking back, with just one run to his name.

Michael Slater, whose pre-lunch play had a certain swashbuckling air to it, had meanwhile lost a bit of his fizz after a few close calls especially against the Indian off spinner. Harbhajan attacked him around his off stump, forcing him to jump back to defend to off breaks, and beating his attempts to skip down the track to him with looping deliveries. Having pushed Slater right back, the offie then sent down the armer, just outside off, Slater pushed for the off break, got the edge playing inside the line, and Laxman held well at slip. Australia had, in a trice, slid from 80/0 to 93/3.

Out came Justin Langer. A belligerent hit over wide long on for six and a couple of handsomely struck fours apart, the left-hander had apparently decided to defend, and help Mark Waugh consolidate an innings seemingly in danger of disintegration. Sairaj Bahutule took him out with a well flighted delivery around his off stump, the flight tempting the batsman into a drive, the drift finding the edge and Laxman, at slip, diving to take a superb catch to a ball flying off the edge at speed. Which brings up a point -- while looking for reasons for India's amazing turnaround, consider this: with Laxman at slip and Das at short square leg, India have two close catchers who have maintained consistent pressure throughout.

The two Waughs got together -- Mark as usual looking the more fluent of the two while brother Steve settled into his trademark grim, defiant batting mode. The two took Australia in to tea on a precarious 159/4 -- the post-lunch session producing 90 runs off 31 overs and, critically, foiur wickets.

Post tea play saw the Indians, who during the morning and afternoon session seemed on fire, once more display their tendency to let things slide for no apparent reason. While Sachin Tendulkar and Sairaj Bahutule came and went at one end, Nilesh Kulkarni was used in a fashion that could have misled a casual observer into imagining that Australia had 500 on the board for the loss of possibly one wicket. Thus, for over after over, the left arm spinner whose forte is accuracy more than dramatic turn, bowled with a packed leg side field to a line two feet outside leg stump -- the only way he could have got rid of either of the two Waughs from there being if they had died of laughter.

That the Indians weren't going hunting at both ends was bad enough -- that this line ended up giving both batsmen easy singles only made it worse. For their part, the two Waughs used all their experience and ability to rebuild the innings, and with the board ticking over past the 190 mark, it began to look as if Australia would end up getting back into the box seat after all.

As so often on this tour, it was the return of Harbhajan Singh to the bowling crease, after a hibernation of some 45 minutes, that made things happen. In the first innings, Harbhajan had made Mark Waugh push at an off break pitching off and turning and bouncing to leg, to be snaffled at leg slip -- and the offie has a very good, very long, memory. Here, again, Ganguly gave him the fielder, Harbhajan produced an indentical delivery, Mark Waugh flicked hard, the ball flashed off the middle of the bat and Rahul Dravid produced a catch that was seen, but hardly believed. Diving as the ball slid past him at speed, he miraculously got a hand to it, tapped it up on the juggle, kept his eye on it, and grabbed it again -- when the catch was completed, the fielder lay prone, at full stretch, with his feet facing the bowler and his face turned to the third man boundary. A remarkable effort and for the third time thus far, superb -- almost un-Indian -- fielding had brought the side back into the game.

Ricky Ponting came out, to face his tormentor. He had thus far this series taken four runs off Harbhajan, and been out to him in all the four innings he has played. The offie almost immediately made it five out of five, as Ponting pushed at an arm ball, again decieved into playing for an off break that wasn't there. The edge was clear, Dighe juggled a bit but held in the end, and Umpire A V Jayaprakash turned down the appeal.

In the very next over, Sairaj Bahutule in his turn induced Ponting to drive one back at him -- an easy, if low, return catch that went to grass. In between, Ponting -- who, for all his reputation as a good player of spin, has in this series reacted like a man having live grenades thrown at him, tried to hit his way out of trouble and managed a smashing straight six, a shot that got him as many runs as he had previously scored in four tries.

Harbhajan ensured that the lapse didn't prove costly. After pushing the batsman right back with deliveries of very full length around off, he looped one a bit higher, landing it just back of good length. Ponting lunged into a defensive push, the ball jumped, took the glove and ballooned for Dravid, at leg slip, to have the simplest of catches.

That brought Shane Warne to the wicket with three successive ducks to his name. And some unintended comedy, as the leg spinner kept trying for that single and as often failing, before a push just wide of point allowed him to scramble through and break the sequence.

Once that hurdle was out of his way, Warne then settled down to play with sense. There were the occasions when he was beaten, by both Tendulkar and Harbhajan, but he held his nerve, thumped the ball whenever he could, and helped his captain negotiate a dangerous period of play, with the Indians racing through their overs trying to squeeze in a few more after the mandatory 90.

And then he had to go and undo all that good work in the final over of play. Harbhajan -- who, incidentally, seems to be suffering a case of extreme ebullience, judging by the way he burst into gleeful laughter on a couple of occasions after particularly good deliveries, and how he playfully went up to Warne to give him a congratulatory pat on the back after the latter scored his first single -- bowled the final over, and the first ball had Warne raising his bat well above his head and presenting his thigh at the ball. The strike was clean -- but the Indians, with their minds perhaps on the imminent end of play, appeared to have forgotten to appeal.

Warne settled down to sticking out his pad at everything -- and telegraphing your intent that way to an attacking bowler is asking for trouble. Harbhajan tossed one up on a very full length, landing it almost inside the crease, Warne played it by rote, lifting his pad above his head like a periscope and sticking his pad out, got hit flush in line, and then seemed bemused when the finger went up.

Left standing, Steve Waugh -- in a so familiar position, fighting a rearguard action. To come, Gillespie, Miller and McGrath, who between them had tallied two ducks in the previous innings. Waugh is batting on 43 -- and while on that, here is a strange statistic, that the Australian skipper is yet to score a second innings 50 in three and a half years.

He will have to score that 50, and much more, if Australia are to save this series. With 131 on the board by way of lead, with 90 overs left in this match, the odds have swung almost entirely in favour of an Indian win. For Australia, a long, defensive rearguard action in the morning seems to be the only possibility to somehow salvage at least a draw here.

Sure, India chasing small targets have folded before -- St John's, anyone? -- but somehow, given the confidence high this team is riding, and the fact that they have faced down this Australian attack for two innings in succession to put up mammoth totals, I don't see it happen here. Do you?

Do you, too, find yourself wishing -- after four days of high-voltage action -- that this were a five-Test series?

Scoreboard
Commentary Transcripts:

Morning session | Post Lunch | Post Tea

Adam Gilchrist in Real Audio -- Day 4

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