The thought that came to me most of the first day of the second India-Australia Test was the extremely defensive fields set by Ricky Ponting virtually from the first ball of the day. It was as if, on losing the toss on an even-paced pitch, Ponting was accepting that a draw was about the best result his side could hope for.
From the start of play, right through to the last over, Ponting refused to put pressure on the batsmen with aggressive and imaginative field-placings.
There was no one at short-forward positions on the leg and off sides. The batsmen could safely pop up the occasional rearing delivery (Peter Siddle’s first ball was a helmet-crasher) and know that they wouldn’t be caught.
Instead of being confronted with fieldsmen within eye-contact of them, the batsmen had to contend with players at sweeping positions on both sides of the wicket.
Sachin Tendulkar, who has struggled to get to 50 in his last ten Test innings, was allowed to push and stroke his way through to 88.
He was finally dismissed by Siddle, with the second new ball, when he tickled a delivery outside his off-stump and Matthew Hayden snaffled a very good catch.
Two times previously Tendulkar had almost chopped a ball onto his stumps.
My theory is that he uses a bat that is too heavy, and when he has to make adjustments to balls short of length outside his off-stump, he is often a fraction too late on the ball, either chopping it near his stumps with an inside edge or, on his dismissal ball, edging a ball away to the slips.
Aside from the defensive fields he set, Ponting did not reveal during the first day, at least, any sort of plan to dismiss the various batsmen.
The field seemed to be the same whoever was on strike and whatever the circumstances of the play, whether quick wickets had been taken or if the Indian batsmen were on top.
The book on Ponting, I think, is that he is a great batsman – Australia’s greatest, in my opinion, since Don Bradman – but a very ordinary captain well away from the first-rate status of someone like Mark Taylor, Ian Chappell or Richie Benaud.
At 311 for 5 India are well-placed on the first day. Any side that scores over 300 runs on the first day of a Test has put itself in a winning position.
The Indian batsmen, especially Tendulkar, were able to score their runs quite quickly and without taking risks because the defensive field placings allowed them to poach runs off virtually every ball.
One final point.
By playing for a draw from day one, Ponting has actually given India a great chance of snatching a victory.
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