Sunday, November 9, 2008

The Game nicely set up at Nagpur!! India win is likely!!


There were not much expectations from Day 4 but this day eventually turned out to be the best one for the Aussies. India started the day quite brilliantly with both Sehwag and Vijay carrying from where they left off in the first innings. They added quick runs and got to lunch at 98 for no loss. Everyone expected that Dhoni would eventually declare at sometime but there was a twist in the second session of play.

Watson who had undone Vijay in the first innings once again got him leg before for 41. Dravid's poor perform made him Watson's second victim. Then Sehwag who was eyeing a century was dismissed to Brett Lee for 92. Laxman and Tendulkar tried to steady the ship as they did in the first innings, but eventually fell one after the other. Laxman was bowled by a beauty from Krejza. Ganguly who came into bat for the last time in his career did not last longer. Before the crowd could stop applauding his arrival to the crease they had to stand up again as he was dismissed for a duck, giving a caught and bowled chance to Krejza. Krejza was then on a hattrick. Soon Tendular followed as he was run out due to a silly mix up. At tea it looked like India would be bowled out below 200. They had gone from 116 for no loss to 166 for 6.

The post tea session belonged to India, thanks to poor captaincy by Ponting. Ponting cautios of his teams' over rate throwed the bowl to his spinners. It was all Krejza, White, Hussey and CLarke from both ends. Dhoni and Harbhajan were quite happy to knock things around and pick the odd boundary here and there. Both scored half centuries and took Indias score past 250. Once Dhoni was dismissed the tail failed to wag and India were bowled out for 295 setting a target of 382 for victory to the Aussies. Aussie openers Hayden and Katich came out knowing that they have to play just 2 or 3 overs. They eventually played out 1.3 overs in which they scored 13 runs. Australia require another 369 runs for victory while India require another 10 wickets. Who will win this game?? Will it be a draw?? With all 3 results possible it promises to be an enthralling day of Test cricket.

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