Australian captain Ricky Ponting faced a tricky decision on a likely target for India after the hosts clawed their way back into the first Test yesterday.
The tourists will start the final day’s play today with an overall lead of 263 with five wickets in hand on a deteriorating wicket that is making batting difficult.
Ponting, whose team closed the fourth day at 193-5 in their second knock, has three sessions left in the match to force a result by giving his bowlers enough time to dismiss India again.
PHOTO: AFP
India not only prolonged their first innings to 360 to narrow Australia’s lead to 70 runs, but slowed their rivals’ bid for quick runs by grabbing wickets at regular intervals.
Zaheer Khan led India’s fightback with an unbeaten 57, his team’s top score, and then removed the dangerous Matthew Hayden for 13 when the Australians batted a second time.
Hayden was given out leg before wicket to Zaheer by Pakistani umpire Asad Rauf for the second time in the match, but TV replays indicated the ball would have missed the leg stump.
Ponting, who made a century in the first innings, was snapped up low at short mid-wicket by Venkatsai Laxman off seamer Ishant Sharma for 17.
Opener Simon Katich (34) had put on 50 for the third wicket with Michael Hussey when he was caught by Laxman at silly point off Harbhajan Singh to make the tourists 99-3.
Australia were just 198 ahead when the fifth wicket fell, Hussey bowled by a Harbhajan’s doosra — the ball that turns into the left-hander instead of going away from him.
Shane Watson (32) and Brad Haddin (28), however, kept the tourists on target by adding 65 in an unbroken sixth wicket partnership.
India were hampered in the field by a shoulder injury to captain and spin spearhead Anil Kumble, who was unable to bowl until the 54th over of the innings.
India, who started the day at 313-8, batted until 30 minutes before lunch, before last man Sharma was bowled by part-time spinner Michael Clarke for 6.
Zaheer had on Saturday put on 80 runs for the eighth wicket with fellow tail-ender Harbhajan, who launched the home team’s late charge with a stroke-filled 54.
India’s last five wickets added a valuable 205 runs after the top five had been dismissed with just 155 on the board.
Zaheer batted for three hours to compile his second Test fifty with the help of seven boundaries.
India’s total was helped along by 52 extras conceded by the Australians, including 23 byes by wicketkeeper Brad Haddin on the unpredictable pitch.
They were the highest number of extras given away by an Australian team against India in an innings, surpassing the 45 Allan Border’s tourists conceded in Mumbai during the 1986 series.
Kumble, who came in on Saturday evening at the fall of Harbhajan’s wicket, put on 31 for the ninth wicket with Zaheer before he was lbw to Watson for 5.
Watson finished with 3-45.
RECORD DEFEAT: The Shanghai-based ‘Oriental Sports Daily’ said the drubbing was so disastrous, and taste so bitter, that all that is left is ‘numbness’ Chinese soccer fans and media rounded on the national team yesterday after they experienced fresh humiliation in a 7-0 thrashing to rivals Japan in their opening Group C match in the third phase of Asian qualifying for the 2026 World Cup. The humiliation in Saitama on Thursday against Asia’s top-ranked team was China’s worst defeat in World Cup qualifying and only a goal short of their record 8-0 loss to Brazil in 2012. Chinese President Xi Jinping once said he wanted China to host and even win the World Cup one day, but that ambition looked further away than ever after a
‘KHELIFMANIA’: In the weeks since the Algerian boxer won gold in Paris, national enthusiasm is inspiring newfound interest in the sport, particularly among women In the weeks since Algeria’s Imane Khelif won an Olympic gold medal in women’s boxing, athletes and coaches in the North African nation say national enthusiasm is inspiring newfound interest in the sport, particularly among women. Khelif’s image is practically everywhere, featured in advertisements at airports, on highway billboards and in boxing gyms. The 25-year-old welterweight’s success in Paris has vaulted her to national hero status, especially after Algerians rallied behind her in the face of uninformed speculation about her gender and eligibility to compete. Amateur boxer Zougar Amina, a medical student who has been practicing for a year, called Khelif an
Crowds descended on the home of 17-year-old Chinese diver Quan Hongchan after she won two golds at the Paris Olympics while gymnast Zhang Boheng hid in a Beijing airport toilet to escape overzealous throngs of fans. They are just two recent examples of what state media are calling “toxic fandom” and Chinese authorities have vowed to crack down on it. Some of the adulation toward China’s sports stars has been more sinister — fans obsessing over athletes’ personal lives, cyberbullying opponents or slamming supposedly crooked judges. Experts say it mirrors the kind of behavior once reserved for entertainment celebrities before
GOING GLOBAL: The regular season fixture is part of the football league’s increasingly ambitious plans to spread the sport to international destinations The US National Football League (NFL) breaks new ground in its global expansion strategy tomorrow when the Philadelphia Eagles and Green Bay Packers face off in the first-ever grid-iron game staged in Brazil. For one night only, the land of Pele and ‘The Beautiful Game’ will get a rare glimpse into the bone-crunching world of American football as the Packers and Eagles collide at Sao Paulo’s Neo Quimica Arena, the 46,000-seat home of soccer club Corinthians. The regular season fixture is part of the NFL’s increasingly ambitious plans to spread the US’ most popular sport to new territories following previous international fixtures