Australia, India enter final day

An interesting day lies ahead in Bangalore, with Australia 263 runs ahead with five wickets in hand. But my first thought on looking at the scorecard was how impoverished Australia's middle order is compared with a year ago. Brad Haddin and Shane Watson are no slouches, but if Adam Gilchrist and Andrew Symonds were at the crease you could start laying your house on Australia adding 90 in an hour and declaring with lots of time remaining.

When Ponting does declare will depend both on how quickly his remaining batsmen score runs and on what faith he has in his bowlers. How they miss a decent spinner right now (although Michael Clarke may continue to weave his spell on India), not least because having more spin options would increase the number of overs that Ponting has to play with. My guess is that he will want to have at least half an hour at India before lunch and will want his team to score another 70 or so first.

Australia teams of late have tended to be quite conservative with their declarations but that is largely due to them batting so quickly that they need to consider how much time the opposition has to score an improbable total. Against England in the 2006-07 Ashes, they set targets of 557 and 648, when anything more than 250 was going to be a tough ask, regardless of time remaining.

The lowest target Australia have set of late was the 333 Ponting asked India to make in 71 overs in Sydney this year. Before then, the lowest target was asking Sri Lanka to score 355 in 2004 (they made 183). Yet only three teams have chased more than 330 to beat Australia - West Indies in 2003, South Africa in 2002 and England in 1928. There was also the tied Test with India in 1986, when the home side made 347 but were one run shy of winning. Is it too much to hope that we could have such a finale in store today?

Probably. India would have to score at five an over to chase such a total and no doubt Australia would be able to contain the runs if it looked as if the game was getting away from them. So come on, Punter, early declaration and let's have a game of it!

Comments

[The Pav]

One good thing about the draw is that Indian aren't behind so there is less likely that a raging turner will be prepared yet as happened to the Saffers

[Sunil Julka]

Another great test match between these two sides. A little unfair to criticise India for not going for the win given the vagaries of the pitch, recent final day capitulations and the fact that this was the first match of the series. Had Sehwag still been in, I suspect there would have been a more positive approach.

Roll on Mohali..

[Homer]

Rusty,

The crock bowler is Stuart Clark (elbow).

"They just won't be able to shift the Indian batsmen, who have no interest in trying to win, only to waste time and work on their personal stats. They'll be studying the sky, their form guide and their fingernails" - in which case they will only be taking the lead from the Australian captain.Who scored 23 runs in 58 balls. After reaching 100.On a first day wicket. In ideal batting conditions.

Cheers,

[Rusty]

It's the bowlers, not the batsmen that are the problem for Australia. Just for once, I might even agree with Homer, though I'm not sure who the crocked medium pacer might be?

They just won't be able to shift the Indian batsmen, who have no interest in trying to win, only to waste time and work on their personal stats. They'll be studying the sky, their form guide and their fingernails, in between hitting a few boundaries to keep the fans in ecstasy. Tendulkar may be the world's greatest batsman, but has anyone ever actually seen him shift ass?

It'll be a draw.

[Fletcher]

Though Australia had set a less target to india it is difficult for indians to chase that target because of the quality bowling by the Aussies. Totally the Indian openers Collapsed this test match!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[J.britto]

Your historical news is very interesting. I think Australia win the match......

[Homer]

Why is everyone discounting the possibility of India taking the remaining 5 Australian wickets within the first hour today and setting themselves 280-290 to win in 75-80 overs?

And if India cannot take the remaining 5 Australian wickets quickly enough ( and thus forcing Ponting's hand) why the assumption that a bowling attack featuring 3 pacers, one crocked medium pacer and two part time spinners will be able to run through an Indian batting line up( given that 8,9, 10 and Jack added 128 runs against the very same bowlers)?

Cheers,

[Peter McGuinness]

The pitch is now astonishingly poor.

Credit to Watson, who has shown starch that I didn't think he had. That's what stringing together more than 20 consecutive minutes of Test Cricket without getting injured or sick must do for a player with such talent.

It will interest Poms (who have never seen Watson) to know that Symonds would likely never have been given an opportunity in the Test team, but for Watson's fragility. Nice to see him staying healthy. Perhaps the shoe is now on the other foot?

Given the pitch has started to play like a goat track, anything could happen. I doubt Ponting will leave anything to chance, although even a medium sized total would be a major achievement from now on.