Blogs Australia Seize Initiative
October 31st, 2008 by kapoorDay three of the Kotla test match will be remembered for two things. Firstly, the unimpressive showing of the Indian captain, despite bowling on his favourite, record-breaking pitch and secondly for the resolute batting by the Aussies. It was apparent from the way the Indians had batted for the first day-and-a-half that this pitch didn’t have too much life in it and the bowlers had to dig in their reserves and come up with something special. This is where they needed leadership in the form of a skipper who was ready to take chances and seize the limited opportunities that were due to come the bowling side’s way. What turned out was a rather ordinary show by Anil Kumble.
When he came on to bowl, everyone was expecting him to give the team the much-needed breakthrough. However, for nearly half-an-hour, Kumble kept pitching the ball well short of the good length area, giving ample opportunities to the batsmen to sweep and pull him. It is no secret that he tends to struggle a bit against the left-handers. With this point in mind, he should have made some quick bowling changes and made sure that Hayden was denied access to quick runs. Instead, he hardly made any inspiring bowling alterations and the likes of Sehewag and Tendulkar were under-utilised. Agreed, they are both part-time bowlers but doesn’t it make sense to try them for a few overs?
Eventually, it was Sehewag who got the wicket of Hayden, but it seemed that he had been brought on far too late. When Hayden departed, Australia had already sailed into the safety zone. Dhoni had been inspirational in the Mohali test match, making quick bowling changes and asking his bowlers to change the bowling angles and their flight in the air. Whereas Kumble appeared content with giving the bowlers extended spells, even when it was clear that the two left-handers — Hayden and Katich were at total ease and were stealing singles and twos at will. India did manage to get four wickets as the day ended, but the Aussies had stolen the initiative by digging in at the crease. Each of their top four batsmen may have batted a bit slowly but has contributed handsomely to the score and it would take the Indian think-tank to pull out something extraordinary to get the Australian team out for anything less than 500.
