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3rd Test, Day 2
Jadeja thrilled to get his bunny Pup
Will anyone come to Mohali Tests?
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It’s a different pitch, says MSD
Prior, seamers propel England
Indo-Pak hockey series called off
Rafa thrashes Federer for best win after comeback
Fletcher gets one year extension
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Oz soar, then fall into deep hole
After 139-run stand for first wicket, visitors lose seven for 134 in two sessions Gaurav Kanthwal/TNS
Mohali, March 15 Trailing 0-2, this clearly is not a team that is intent upon winning the two remaining matches. There might be a hint of comfort in the fact that this has been their best start in the series. But this is not good enough for a visiting side anywhere, at least not in India. After pulling off some sort of a feat (139/0) at the top of the batting line-up for the first time in series, Australia slid to 273/7 in 104 overs on Day Two after the first day was washed away in rain. They can blame the Indian spinners or they can blame themselves. And if the half chances and dropped catches are taken into account, the Australians certainly know who exactly is to blame. For the openers Ed Cowan (86 off 238 balls, 8x4) and David Warner (71, 147b, 9x4) had done their homework elaborately, much to the delight of coach Mickey Arthur, and were beaming in the morning glow at the PCA Stadium. Indian pacers and spinners tested them and they were quick with their responses. After the first session ended, the Australians were through with good grades. But as the Test drew longer they started stuttering and fumbling. Their heads spinning the moment Warner fell prey to Ravindra Jadeja. Michael Clarke was the next one to go, off Jadeja’s next ball, bringing back the crisis they have been fearing all along. Clarke, falling to Jadeja three times in four innings, caused Australia to be caught in the freeze, left to battle the rest of the day. Phil Hughes, the next man in, showed how much the Aussie hands have been tied in the web of spin. It took him 20 balls to score his first run today — his first off spin bowling in the last 59 balls. It took him seven balls more to score another. And that was it from him in the first innings New man in Brad Haddin (21) and Moises Henriques, both falling to Ishant Sharma, were no different. Haddin at least got a start but Henriques forgot the old lessons. The whole class, barring a few, have been miserably failing on this Test time and again. Had Arthur been a schoolteacher, he would have been scratching his head and tip-toeing from one corner to the other, seeking solutions. The two unbeaten batsmen, Steve Smith (58; 137 b, 7x4,1x6) and Mitchell Starc (20), do entertain a hope but that is all they have for now. It is not that India wove a vicious web of spin around the visitors. Jadeja’s (3/56) left arm line was hardly consistent. He drifted from off stump to leg many a times but managed to intersperse them with good ones too. He bowled 22 overs in all, six of them maidens, and was unlucky to have some of the catches fluffed. But he bowled two good ones (to Warner and Clarke) and one towards the end of the day to Siddle. And that was more than enough for the Aussies. Ashwin, however, was consistently good with his flight and deliberately bowled slower through the air as the ball was coming off nicely from the pitch. All the Australians needed was a little patience, but they were not in a patient mood. There was a surprising regularity in his flatter ones and the big turning off breaks. His carrom ball (52.4 overs) to already flummoxed Phil Hughes made nothing short of a mockery of the struggling batsman. Day Two 2 could be tagged as a day of lost opportunity for Australia and also a day of half chances and dropped catches for India. Day Three demands the visitors got over their failures and make up for the lost opportunity. India too can’t take things lightly.
Scoreboard
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Jadeja thrilled to get his bunny Pup
Mohali, March 15 Clarke was flummoxed first ball by Jadeja as Australia reached 273 for three on the second day. He lured Clarke to come down the wicket, only to be stumped by Mahendra Singh Dhoni. The left-arm spinner has already dismissed Clarke three times in the series. “Bunny...I don’t know. It’s just that whenever I have the ball, he is there facing me,” Jadeja said when asked if he was doing to Clarke what Harbhajan Singh had done with former Australian captain Ricky Ponting in the past. Considering Clarke’s propensity to notch up big scores, it was a breakthrough India were looking at. “It’s a very important wicket because if you allow him to settle down, he can make big scores. So I am very thrilled,” Jadeja said. “The aim is to not let them score enough runs, we would look to take the remaining three wickets as soon as possible so that we get enough time to bat,” he added about India’s gameplan. — PTI
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Will anyone come to Mohali Tests?
Mohali, March 15
The crowd at the PCA Stadium today could not have been much above 2,000, if that. In Chennai, one had to weave through crowds of painted-faced, tricolour-waving crowds to get into the stadium. Long endless queues seemed to emanate from the head of each box office, and they included women. Hyderabad was wilder, which was a surprise for the stadium is relatively distant and unapproachable from the city, the traffic heavy and slow-moving. Cricket-mania was alarmingly loud there, possibly dangerously so for the shouters in the blazing, draining sun. The ear-splitting din they raised without pause could give you a headache in five minutes. Entry to the stadium, again, was slow. The streets of Mohali were eerily quiet; roads were blocked all around the ground to restrict people, who weren’t coming in to watch the cricket anyway. The face painters and flag sellers were forlorn. In Hyderabad, the local cricket association president, G. Vinod, was ecstatic, even boastful. They announced the attendance figures everyday — always above 22,000 people a day, totalling over 80,000 for the first three days. The last few times Test cricket visited the city, schoolchildren were bussed from towns and villages from Punjab to make up numbers. When Sachin Tendulkar became the highest run-scorer in Test cricket, breaking Brian Lara’s world record in 2008, it was a good thing that the kids had been brought in — the stands were empty save for them. Tendulkar, raising his bat, must have wondered which way to look, for confronting him were empty stands on every side. The empty Mohali story is an old one, told many times, raising each time questions about the viability and wisdom of holding Test cricket here. It can’t be for only the TV audiences, surely.
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It’s a different pitch, says MSD
Mohali, March 15 Now, four months later, this is the same pitch where India have put the Australians on the mat on the first day. The wicket is already turning and the ball is gripping the surface, though the bounce is uneven sometimes. Not surprisingly, five of the seven wickets went to spinners. There had been an intense debate on the nature of this wicket before the start of the match and PCA officials said that it will be a “competitive wicket”. After the toss, Skipper MS Dhoni was surprised to see how much the wicket had changed here since he last played here. “It’s a very different looking Mohali surface,” he said at toss. “For first time it will assist spinners as much as it will. Normally you don’t get a Mohali wicket like this. It looks like a good track, and as a normal subcontinental track, it will assist the spinners as the game progresses.” That assistance has come sooner rather than later. Given the way the wicket has shown turn on the first day it was played on, it leaves very little doubt that the team that handles spin will have the obvious advantage. And that it’s not the normal surface for this ground — it’s a “different” surface, as Dhoni put it.
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Wellington, March 15 England, bowled out for 465 just minutes before the tea interval, reduced New Zealand to 66 for three at stumps and put themselves firmly in charge of the match with three days still to play. Kane Williamson was 32 not out, while Dean Brownlie was on eight after England’s pace bowlers had given the New Zealand lineup a torrid working over in the final session. Broad seized on the earlier work by James Anderson and Steven Finn to lure Hamish Rutherford (23) into chasing a full wide delivery that only succeeded in catching an outside edge and the ball flew to Alastair Cook at first slip. Former New Zealand captain Ross Taylor was then clean bowled with a beautiful delivery that seamed slightly away and clipped the top of Taylor’s off stump to leave the hosts in dire straits on 48 for three. Brownlie survived the hat-trick delivery with a push to midwicket for two runs. “For Broady to get two balls in the right area back to back was credit to him (and) those couple of wickets at the end certainly turned that last session,” said Prior, who launched a blistering counter-attack to score 82 runs from 99 balls and halt any momentum New Zealand had been gathering. “That was hats off to the bowlers, grabbing the opportunity. We’ve got to make sure that we come in tomorrow and really press this advantage home.” After being flogged all around a sun-drenched Basin Reserve on Thursday, the hosts took three wickets in the first session, including that of Jonathan Trott, who failed to add to his score of 121 and was dismissed on the first ball he faced. Kevin Pietersen (73) and Broad (six) then fell in quick succession after the lunch break to leave the visitors on 374-7 and in danger of throwing away their advantage. The aggressive Prior, however, took up the challenge to bat with the tail as long as possible as well as move the game along. He punished anything outside off-stump, punching the ball in the arc between backward point and extra cover for 40 of his runs, while he also produced two superb lofted straight drives for six off Neil Wagner. Finn, who batted as nightwatchman for almost five hours in the drawn first test in Dunedin, shared in an 83-run partnership with Prior before he was caught by Brendon McCullum at short extra cover off Wagner for 24 with less than 10 minutes remaining in the middle session. Prior fell minutes later to part-time spinner Williamson, who also dismissed Monty Panesar in the same over to wrap up the innings and bring an early tea. Anderson was eight not out for the visitors, while New Zealand left arm spinner Bruce Martin finished with four for 130 from 48 overs. “I enjoyed it, there was a little bit of turn and probably more than I’ve had all season to be honest on some of the decks, it was nice,” Martin said. “Everything seems to be going well. I’ve had 13 years to visualise playing test cricket,” the 32-year-old added of making his long-awaited debut in Dunedin last week. “I’ve been playing this game for a long time in my head, this test cricket, so its nice to get out there and have a crack.” “Today was good and I picked up some pretty big wickets which I was happy with. I hope it continues.” — Reuters Scoreboard N Zealand first innings
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Indo-Pak hockey series called off
New Delhi, March 15 The Pakistan team was scheduled to tour India in mid-April for five Test matches, followed by a return visit by India. But the Ministry of External Affairs has refused to give the green signal to the planned series, a day after the Pakistan Parliament passed a resolution against Afzal Guru’s execution. Hockey India secretary general Narinder Batra informed that the MEA had asked them to call-off the bilateral series in a communication last evening. “The protocol demands permission from the Sports Ministry, the Ministry of Home Affairs and the Ministry of External Affairs for any bilateral series. We got the permissions from the Sports Ministry and the MHA but the MEA refused to give us permission. “The MEA had sent a fax to us yesterday, asking us not to host Pakistan or travel to the country for the series.” — PTI
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Rafa thrashes Federer for best win after comeback
Mumbai, March 15 The Spaniard, then, must be mightily satisfied his left knee — the most scrutinized body part in men’s tennis — passed a high profile examination on Thursday when he swept aside great rival Roger Federer to reach the semi-finals in Indian Wells. The attention foisted on Nadal at the BNP Paribas Open this year, his first hardcourt tournament in almost a year, has been extraordinary, even for a man who has been one of the biggest names in the game for almost a decade. Though the left-hander has made a noteworthy return to his favoured clay courts in recent weeks, the hard courts of Indian Wells were always likely to provide his toughest test on a surface where his counter-punching style has often been least effective. Following a second-round exit at Wimbledon last year, Nadal was sidelined for seven months by an injury to that knee. The tennis world has closely monitored his recovery and progress ever since. The 26-year-old has progressed smoothly at Indian Wells, though, winning his first two matches with one walkover before thumping long-time rival Federer 6-2 6-4 in the quarters. He has shown no visible signs of discomfort, with the knee taped throughout his matches, and said he was especially pleased with his movement while taking advantage of Federer who was struggling with his own back niggle. “My movement tonight was much better than yesterday,” 11-times grand slam singles champion Nadal said. “I played longer than yesterday. I played a fantastic first set, in my opinion.” — Reuters
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Fletcher gets one year extension
Duncan Fletcher’s contract as India’s cricket coach was today extended by one more year despite a below-par track record, setting to rest the intense speculation on his future. The decision to renew the 64-year-old Fletcher’s contract, which was due to end at the end of this month, was taken by the BCCI’s Working Committee today.
“The working committee decided to extend Fletcher’s contract by one year. Since he has been with the team for two years, we don’t want to take a knee-jerk reaction considering the next big Test series is in South Africa. It will be risky and unfair on a new coach to give him charge in South Africa and expect good results from him,” a senior BCCI member said. Speculation were rife about Fletcher’s future after he had lost 10 Test matches including a home series against England recently apart from ‘whitewashes’ in England and Australia. Under Fletcher, India had lost 10 out of the 22 Test matches before the ongoing match in Mohali having won only eight. The only away Test win was against West Indies nearly two years back just when Fletcher had taken charge. In the 44 ODI matches played by India post their World Cup triumph, the ‘Men in Blue’ have won 25 matches losing 16. There were two tied matches and one match did not yield any result. In T20s, India won nine of the 17 matches losing the other eight. India have not qualified for the Asia Cup final and couldn’t make it to the last four in the World T20. — PTI |
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That the Australians are suspect against spin bowling was known even before they arrived in India. That they — even after putting up their biggest opening stand in the series so far — let the team slide into the mundane mediocrity shows that they haven’t learnt their lessons so far.
Mumbai, March 15 
SESSION 1
half chances, Drops 
After the long queues of Chennai, after the deafening noise, the four-minute Mexican Waves of Hyderabad, play at Mohali today was marked by silence. The cricket lovers of the region have, with great craze and passion, given the third Test a wide berth. Sachin Tendulkar might be playing his last Test here, India might seal a 2-0 or 3-0 series victory here — but Chandigarh and Mohali couldn’t care less.
Matt Prior produced an exceptional counter-attacking innings then Stuart Broad captured two wickets in successive balls as England took control of the second test against New Zealand by the close of play of the second day on Friday.
