India vs Australia 2nd Test 2008: Fourth Day Report
India is now on the verge of a seemingly victory in the Mohali test. At the end of the fourth day, it seems that India’s victory is now just a matter of time with Australian batsmen continuing their struggling in the second innings too. Chasing a huge winning target of 516, Australia has already lost 5 wickets at 141 runs. That means Australia needs 375 more runs to win this match or bat throughout 90 overs on the final day for a draw. Neither of the options would be easy to materialize, considering the quality of Indian spinners and the turning track. Michael Clarke and Brad Haddin are now batting on 42 and 37 respectively.
When India declared their second innings on 314 for 3, Australia got a winning target of 516. With a target of 516, Australia had two options available to follow. First one was to chase down the total for victory with aggressive batting, while the second one was to bat defensively without taking any risk and play for a draw with sheer patience. Australia chose the first option and failed, but you can not blame them for choosing the first option because there was no guarantee that Australian batsmen would have successfully batted for more than four sessions in the fourth innings on a turning wicket in the presence of the quality spinners like Harbhajan Singh and Amit Mishra.
Australian openers started executing their plan pretty successfully as they put on 49 runs off 7.1 overs before the dismissal of opener Mathew Hayden on 29 off just 20 with four boundaries. Australian openers were playing the Indian pacers pretty confidently, but the situation started changing when the spinners came in the scene. Specially, off spinner Harbhajan Singh took no time to dismiss two openers in the 8th over of the innings. After Hayden’s dismissal, his opening pair Simon Katich also joined him in the dressing room just after four balls, getting out on 20. Australian middle order failed to get over the double blow and lost three more wickets in quick succession. With Harbhajan Singh picking up the wicket of Michael Hussey on 1 and pacer Ishant Sharma taking the wickets of Captain Ricky Ponting and Shane Watson, both on 2, Australian innings turned from a solid 49 for 0 to a shaky 58 for 5. At that point it seemed India might clinch a resounding victory on the fourth day, but Michael Hussey and wicketkeeper Brad Haddin had different ideas.
Clarke and Haddin have stood out in front of the Indian bowlers successfully and have built an unbeaten partnership of 83 runs for the sixth wicket. They batted for an hour and half, showing sheer patience. Harbhajan Singh picked up three wickets for India, while Ishant Sharma shared 2 to keep the pressure on the visiting team.
Earlier in the morning, Indian openers added 82 more runs to the previous days 100 for 0 and brought a solid start for the later batsmen. Indian batsmen were aggressive in batting and thus they could quickly declare their innings. Virender Sehwag fell just 10 run short of another test century being caught behind off Peter Siddle. His 90 runs came from just 122 balls with 8 boundaries. However, his opening partner Gautam Gambhir did not make any mistake and got a deserved test century, but the left handed batsman got out soon after reaching hundred on 104. Gambhir played 138 balls to score 104, hitting 7 boundaries and 1 over boundary.
Mahendra Singh Dhoni promoted himself to the batting order and came to bat at no. 3 following the dismissal of Sehwag and played an expected innings of 68 not out off 84 balls with 3 boundaries and 1 over boundary. Ganguly also came to bat before Sachin Tendulkar and started playing well before getting out on 27 off 27 balls. Then Sachin Tendulkar came in and remained not out on 10 off 12 balls when Dhoni declared the innings on 314, ensuring a safe total for India. Brett Lee, Peter Siddle and Cameron White got a wicket each.
