Australians climb from the canvas to defeat India

By Daniel Brettig, 3 Nov 2009 Daniel Brettig is a Roar Pro

Tagged:: Australian Cricket, Cricket, india cricket, ODIs, One day cricket, Ricky Ponting

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Resilient Australia climbed off the canvas to defeat India by 24 runs in the fourth one-day match at Mohali on Tuesday.

Having folded badly to be bowled out for 250 inside 50 overs on a beautiful pitch for batting, the tourists were inspired by the aggression of Doug Bollinger (3-38) to round the Indians up for 226 and level the series 2-2 with three games to play.

A fair distance from captain Ricky Ponting’s plans early in the tour, Bollinger has capitalised on a high injury toll to catch the eye first at New Delhi (0-26 from 10 overs) then in more startling manner here.

Crucially it was he who claimed the wicket of Indian skipper MS Dhoni, a consistent thorn in the side of the visitors across the series, for 26.

Bollinger’s rhythm and accuracy contrasted with the out of sorts Mitchell Johnson, who was flayed around the PCA Stadium by batsman and tailenders alike for figures of 0-74 from nine overs, his worst return in the 50-over game.

Shane Watson (3-29) extinguished India’s last hope with a sharp caught and bowled to dismiss the perennially pesky Harbhajan Singh (31), while Nathan Hauritz (2-31) was again crafty.

Virender Sehwag began as though he intended to reach the target in half the allotted time, peeling three boundaries from each of Johnson’s second and third overs.

But he was out before the bleeding of runs became terminal, mistiming a drive to depart for 30 (19 balls).

Youngster Virat Kohli was rashly expected to bat at No.3 in place of the injured Gautam Gambhir, and made 10 before swatting at Bollinger and edging behind.

Tendulkar (40) crept to within seven runs of 17,000 in limited overs cricket, only to be harshly given lbw to a Hauritz delivery that was surely going past leg stump.

Defending desperately, the Australians were grateful to get it, and there was more charity offered by Yuvraj Singh, who tried to sneak a run past Ricky Ponting at cover and paid the penalty, run out for 12.

Bollinger’s brilliant first spell was backed up in his second, when second ball of his return he had MS Dhoni (26) feathering a legside catch to Graham Manou, leaving Suresh Raina and the bowlers to locate the last 106 runs.

Hauritz was having none of that, and his nicely pitched off break flicked the outside of Raina’s off stump to leave what was, with the exception of Harbhajan, a straightforward mop-up operation.

The Australians had looked like ruing a string of starts, after Shane Watson (49), captain Ricky Ponting (52), Mike Hussey (40) and Cameron White (62) were all dismissed without going on from fluent beginnings.

Ponting squandered his sublime form by dawdling his first then pushing for a second and being run out by Ravindra Jadeja’s direct hit, the third time the left-armer has dismissed Ponting, either as bowler or fielder, in four innings.

White’s dismissal hastened a collapse of 5-24 to end the innings.

Ashish Nehra (3-37), Harbhajan (2-48) and Jadeja (a tidy 0-27 plus the run out of Ponting) all made key contributions to Indian bowling attack, but Ishant Sharma (five overs for 42) was expensive.

Ponting credited his bowlers, and Bollinger in particular, for defending a score significantly less than they should have had to.

“It was an excellent win in the end, I thought we left probably 30-40 runs out there with the bat,” he said.

“But it really was a good fighting win … Dougy really has stepped up in the past two games.”

Dhoni said it was his side’s failure to build decent partnerships, not the contentious dismissal of Tendulkar, that was largely to blame for the defeat.

The fifth match of the series will be played in Hyderabad on Thursday.

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The Crowd Says (10) | Page 1 of Comments

Spiro Zavos said | November 3rd 2009 @ 6:50am | Report comment

M.S.Dhoni made the same mistake as Ricky Ponting the match before and won the toss and put Australia into bat. The advantage of bowling second is that you have a much better idea of how to use your bowlers. You know how many runs you have to bowl at and so have the advantage of working the bowlers in a way that allows you, the captain, to get the best value from your bowlers.
Sometimes this means bowling them out straight away and not holding them back and other times not bowling certain bowlers their allotted over.
Will the toss winner put the other side into bat in the next ODI? Or will the captains finally learn their lesson.

Reply
- Freud of Football said | November 3rd 2009 @ 7:13am | Report comment
  
  Spiro, you are right and yet international cricketers, selection panels and administrative bodies cannot communicate this to the captains. Didn’t WG Grace say;
  
  “When you win the boss – bat. If you are in doubt, think about it – then bat. If you have very big doubts, consult a colleague – then bat.”? Wise words indeed.
  
  Apparently Dhoni was worried about the dew, well what affect did it have? After every wicket they had people running out on to the field and dragging ropes across the grass to soak up any moisture anyway, it was totally counter-productive and if I were in Dhoni’s shoes I’d back my batsmen every time. Tendulkar in particular looked pre-occupied with his record, if he’d batted in the first innings he would no doubt have been unshackled.
  
  Australia can count themselves lucky though, 250 wasn’t enough on that track, 4 run-outs and a stumping is also something they need to make sure doesn’t happen again.
  
  Reply
vinay verma said | November 3rd 2009 @ 9:52am | Report comment

Spiro the next gane is a D/N at Hyderabad and the best conditions are in the afternoon. Win the toss and bat. The sixth one is at Guwahati and an early morning start. Send the opposition in. So you cant really bat first everytime. The last one at Mumbai will not matter if you bat first or second. India actually like to chase because they have confidence in their top four. But if they dont fire India struggles. And yes Tendulkar was focussed on the 17000..very unlike him.

Freud..Cricket is a game of yards and inches, thankfully the metrics have not totally taken over. Pontings’ run out was a split second hesitation.He was going to take just a single and then realised there may be two and hesitated momentarily..it took a great throw from jadeja. White and manou were backing up and you cant blame them. Manou actually slipped trying to recover. Bollinger’s was a non event. Henriques stumping was the case of a youngster panicking. His wild swipe was desperation and he will learn. India’s fielding was or me a revelation and shows the ground surface is improving to the point where the Indians are not hesitant to throw themselves around. Five years ago it would have been courting torn skin and blood.

Ponting’s run out of Yuvraj changed the game and he backed up by running out his nemesis Jadeja. Ponting would have enjoyed that. I also thought Ponting rotated his bowlers well and one day soon Johnson has to repay this trust.Hauritz continues to enhance his reputation and was not afraid to flight it to both Yuvraj and Tendulkar. The education continues .

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Jameswm said | November 3rd 2009 @ 10:40am | Report comment

Marsh dudded it again.

What do the selectors see in him? He’s not fit to tie Katich’s shoelaces, yet Kat doesn’t get a look-in.

Even the biggest Watson doubters must be starting to re-assess now. He is consistently one of our best players, sometimes, like yesterday, in batting AND bowling.

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- Freud of Football said | November 4th 2009 @ 2:12am | Report comment
  
  Katich is “too old”, the selectors are rightly focussing on the next WC and Katich wil certainly be over the hill by then, whether Marsh is the right batsman is a matter of opinion but Katich, at 34, isn’t the man for the job.
  
  Reply
Alec Swann said | November 3rd 2009 @ 10:15pm | Report comment

Unless conditions dictate, and they rarely do on the sub-continent, you should win the toss and bat.

At whatever level of cricket you play, it is harder to chase a score than it is to set. It always has been and it always will be.

Reply
- vinay verma said | November 4th 2009 @ 6:50am | Report comment
  
  Alec..it hasn’t always been the case. The Great West indies of the Mid seventies to the Mid eighties could chase anything and defend anything (more often than not)The toss did not matter a great deal to them. You could amost say “Who gives a toss”
  
  Reply
Jameswm said | November 4th 2009 @ 7:59am | Report comment

Freud – apart from the selectors, who rates Marsh?

I don’t buy that too old stuff – if you’re good enough, you’re young enough. And there’s no doubt Katich is good enough. It’s a crime that he’s left out of the other levels of the game. Look what he did captaining NSW in the 20/20 thing.

Hughes and Jaques leave Marsh for dead too – I don’t get it. Marsh struggles to get it off the wicket square half the time.

It helps to have a well known dad is all I can say. Even Paine is a better bat than Marsh.

Reply
- vinay verma said | November 4th 2009 @ 8:07am | Report comment
  
  Jameswm…Katich is good enough to play till the next World Cup…Jayasuriya played the 2007 WC at 38. I say stick with Katich and Hughes as openers for all three forms.
  
  Reply
Jameswm said | November 5th 2009 @ 8:43am | Report comment

We all know Katich is good enough in all 3 forms, not to mention being the best thinker there.

Someone please explain how our selectors kept their jobs after dud decision after dud decision…

Reply