Debutant leg-spinner Amit Mishra picked up two key wickets as India pushed Australia into a corner on the second day of the second Test yesterday.
Mishra, 24, sent back Simon Katich (33) before dismissing Michael Clarke (23) off the penultimate ball of the day to reduce the visitors to a shaky 102-4 on what still seemed a good batting wicket.
His efforts with the ball came after Sourav Ganguly hit a century and Mahendra Singh Dhoni an attacking 92 to take India to 469 all out in the first innings.
PHOTO: AP
At stumps, Michael Hussey was on 37 with five fours.
It was Zaheer Khan again who gave the home side the crucial breakthrough when he cleaned the off stump of opener Matthew Hayden for a duck off just the third ball of the Australian innings.
It was the third time in the series that the left-arm pace man had claimed Hayden cheaply after dismissing him twice in the drawn Bangalore opener.
PHOTO: AFP
Australian captain Ricky Ponting fumbled around for nearly half-an-hour for his five runs before being trapped leg before by a sharp in-cutter from new-ball bowler Ishant Sharma.
Katich looked in good touch, reading both the seamers and the spinners well until he misjudged Mishra and gifted him his maiden Test wicket.
His 65-ball knock contained six fours, including three of them off Sharma.
PHOTO: AP
Australia would have been in deeper trouble had Dhoni taken a simple catch off Hussey off Harbhajan Singh when the batsman was on 25.
Earlier Ganguly, aged 36, hit eight fours in his patient 225-ball knock and shared a 109-run partnership with Dhoni, who hammered eight fours and four sixes in his entertaining 124-ball innings.
Ganguly, set to retire after the four-Test series for the Border-Gavaskar trophy, reached his 16th Test century with a four to the square leg fence off leg-spinner Cameron White.
The former Indian captain, who completed 7,000 runs in his 111th Test on Friday, was out soon after reaching his century, holing out to Brett Lee at long off to give White his first wicket of the match.
White (2-71) struck again when he cleaned the off stump of Harbhajan to reduce the home side to 442-8.
Dhoni, though, continued his attacking style of batting, pulling Lee twice over square leg for fours as the pace man struggled with his line and length once again in the morning session.
Lee (1-86) also needed two stitches on his right hand after hurting himself while stopping a ball in his follow through.
Dhoni, leading the side in the absence of injured captain Anil Kumble, was also severe on debutant fast bowler Peter Siddle, pulling him over fine leg for the first six of the innings.
Dhoni’s fiery knock was brought to an end by Siddle, who trapped him leg before with a searing inswinger, while Zaheer was run out by Lee.
Australia pace man Mitchell Johnson finished with 3-85.
Hong Kong-based cricket team Hung See this weekend found success in their matches in Taiwan, even if none of the results went their way. Hung See played the Chairman’s XI on Saturday morning, the Daredevils that afternoon and PCCT yesterday, with all three home teams winning. The team for Chinese players at the Happy Valley-based Craigengower Cricket Club sends teams on tour to “spread the game of cricket.” This weekend was Hung See’s second trip to Taiwan after visiting Tainan in 2016. “The club has been traveling to all parts of the world since 1982 and the annual tradition continues [with the Taiwan
‘TOUGH TO BREATHE’: Tunisian three-time Grand Slam finalist Ons Jabeur suffered an asthma attack in her 7-5, 6-3 victory over Colombia’s Camila Osorio Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei yesterday cruised into the second round of the women’s doubles at the Australian Open, while Iga Swiatek romped into a third-round women’s singles showdown with Emma Raducanu and Taylor Fritz was just as emphatic in his pursuit of a maiden Grand Slam title. Hsieh and Jelena Ostapenko of Latvia, the third seeds, defeated Slovakia’s Tereza Mihalikova and Olivia Nicholls of Britain 7-5, 6-2 in 90 minutes in Melbourne. Ostapenko and Hsieh — who won the women’s doubles and mixed doubles at the Australian Open last year — hit 25 winners and converted five of nine break points to set
HARD TO SAY GOODBYE: After Coco Gauff dispatched Belinda Bencic in the fourth round, she wrote ‘RIP TikTok USA’ and drew a broken heart on a television camera lens Defending champion Hsieh Su-wei of Taiwan yesterday advanced to the quarter-finals of the women’s doubles at the Australian Open, while compatriot Chan Hao-ching on Saturday dominated her opponents in the second round, as world No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka swept into the quarter-finals. Third seeds Hsieh and Jelena Ostapenko of Latvia toppled Hungary’s Timea Babos and Nicole Melichar-Martinez of the US 6-4, 6-3, hitting 24 winners and converting three of seven break points in 1 hour, 18 minutes at 1573 Arena. Although rivals at last year’s Australian Open — where Hsieh and Belgium’s Elise Mertens beat Ostapenko and Ukraine’s Lyudmyla Kichenok 6-1, 7-5
Dubbed a “motorway for cyclists” where avid amateurs can chase Tadej Pogacar up mountains teeming with the highest concentration of professional cyclists per square kilometer in the world, Spain’s Costa Blanca has forged a new reputation for itself in the past few years. Long known as the ideal summer destination for those in search of sun, sea and sand, the stretch of coast between Valencia and Alicante now has a winter vocation too. During the season break in December and January, the region experiences an invasion of cyclists. Star names such as three-time Tour de France winner Pogacar, Remco Evenepoel and Julian Alaphilippe
RSS