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The Roar’s live commentary captured another completely dominant day for Australia at the Adelaide Oval, as Ricky Ponting and Michael Clarke made unbeaten centuries which they will aim to turn into double hundreds when Day 2 begins tomorrow.
It’s hard to think of a day that Australia hasn’t dominated on this tour, bar perhaps day two in Melbourne when India’s batsmen looked well placed by stumps.
The first session today was a rare win for India, taking the first three wickets for less than a hundred. Dave Warner was done for 8, Shaun Marsh for 3, and Ed Cowan, though he stuck around a long time and built a 50 partnership with Ponting, but was eventually out for 30.
At that point, Australia were 3/84, and could have faced trouble. But in a carbon copy of the match in Sydney, Ponting and Clarke ignored the early tremble to put on another monster partnership of 251. They will resume in the morning with Clarke on 140 and Ponting on 137. Make no mistake that they’ll be eyeing off mammoth scores on a tailor-made batting pitch, against an innocuous attack and clueless captaincy.
Stand-in skipper Virender Sehwag in fact looked a captaincy genius in the first session, when he introduced off-spinner Ashwin in the fourth over and got rid of Marsh, then later brought back Ashwin to get Cowan. But he looked more a dunce later in the day, as he persisted in bowling himself for far too long, donating 49 runs while keeping his frontline bowlers away from the action.
Umesh Yadav was the other big contributor to the day’s doldrums, as he was smashed for 87 runs from his 12 overs – an economy rate of 7.25. Forced to drag Yadav quickly in each new spell, Sehwag ended up bowling 13 overs to Yadav’s 12.
Sehwag also refused to bring in enough slips, costing several chances from Ponting and Clarke, and a few dozen runs in boundaries. Ishant Sharma is the King Lear of this side, wandering alone and luckless in the wilderness and howling his opprobrium at the storm. An extra slip or two across these four Tests, and his wicket tally would have been quite respectable. Instead he has four wickets at 94.
Ultimately, India have only themselves to blame for another poor day. That said, this pitch is likely to be very good for three days at least, so if India’s batting can match Australia’s, something could still be made of the match. Remember that Australia lost to India in 2003 after making more than 500 in the first innings.
That match featured a mammoth second-innings partnership between Rahul Dravid and VVS Laxman to pass Australia’s score, and a devastating third-innings spell of reverse swing from a written-off and supposedly hopeless bowler in Ajit Agarkar, whose finest hour of Test cricket yielded 6/41. Set 230 to win, India stumbled but made it, thanks to Dravid’s unbeaten 72.
All those ingredients are present in this match too. But while that was a stellar match against Steve Waugh’s mighty side, the India team of that era had a steel about them which has been completely lacking this series. No Indian batsman has made a century, while Yadav has the sole five-wicket innings.
Australia, meanwhile, has six hundreds, two five-wicket hauls, and four four-wicket hauls. More important than individual spoils has been the way Australia’s bowlers have hunted in packs, maintaining pressure for long periods of time, and backed by good catching.
Their bowlers will look to continue this form after the batting is done – and the way things went today, that could be late on Day 2 via a declaration. Still nothing is sure in cricket, and we can only see whether India can conjure some riposte early tomorrow with their still-new ball.
Australia are hugely keen to erase memories of their 2011 humiliations by completing a whitewash. Expect to see full ferocity maintained from this side. The only dead rubber you’ll see is from Adelaide bogans doing burnouts in the carpark.
On a final note, if anyone mentions a combined tally of international centuries, or an absence of a certain Decision Review System, I will put a voodoo hex on you via your computer. Be warned.