Hayden grinds India on day one
Prem Panicker
If in Calcutta, India had VVS Laxman, then Australia in Madras found a counter in Mathew Hayden -- batting 147 off 249 balls with 13 fours and five huge sixes.
There are parallels between the two -- Hayden, like Laxman, has found himself in the wilderness and forced to make runs by the ton in domestic cricket to fight his way back into this lineup. Hayden, like Laxman, believes that once he gets set, he owes it to himself to bat on and on and on. And Hayden, like Laxman, believes in the virtue of intense preparation.
Thus, in the buildup to this tour, the Aussie opener asked for special pitches to be prepared and spent oodles of time learning to use his feet to spin, and perfecting the sweep as a weapon. And the effort has paid off, with the opener recording his second century of the tour here, not to forget a blistering 97 in the first innings in Calcutta.
Today's innings was as much about character and concentration as it was about power-packed strokeplay. With the shots flying off the middle of the bat, Hayden must have been tempted time and again to go into overdrive, to pay back the Indian bowling. Instead, he focussed on the task of batting Australia to strength, intent on staying out there in the middle, patiently waiting for errors in line and length to put away.
Statistics tell only part of the story at the best of times -- but in the case of this innings of Hayden's, it tells the best part. When he got to his 100, Hayden's innings contained 9 fours, and five sixes, four of those hit in the first session of play before he buckled down to the long grind. Equally importantly, it contained 112 dot balls, and 25 singles.
Check out his wagonwheel -- his five sixes came in the V, two of them over mid off, three over mid on. Only 2 of his 12 fours came in that direction -- indicating that when he drove, he was prepared to really tee off, bring those powerful shoulders into play, and hit the ball high, hard, and handsome. The sweep was his ultimate weapon, employed judiciously to put the Indian spinners under pressure throughout his day long vigil -- and again, the figures are significant. 24 of his runs came through the midwicket area, and an amazing 44 behind square (only two of those being fours). That tells its own tale -- Hayden was content to play the sweep and paddle and if only ones and twos were on offer, that was fine with him too. When his score was on 86, again, we noted this stat -- at that point he had played the sweep 29 times, never once in loose fashion, and scored 30 of his 86 runs with that shot.
It tells a story -- of practise making perfect.
On what rolled out, on day one, into a lovely batting track, the side that lost at Calcutta was content to make just one change -- Colin Miller coming in, to join forces with a Shane Warne sporting a new hair cut. The side that won, meanwhile, made wholesale changes -- Venkatapathy Raju, used as the containing bowler in Calcutta, made way for Nilesh Kulkarni to play the same role here. Venkatesh Prasad with his leg cutters made way for Sairaj Bahutule with his leg breaks. And Nayan Mongia with his bust nose made way for Samir Dighe.
This last change came as a bit of a surprise. Till shortly before start of play, Mongia -- bust nose or no -- was down in the team list as playing. And then, suddenly, his name was scratched out and Dighe's pencilled in. It had you wondering. Wondering, too, why Dighe and not Dahiya -- the selectors apparently felt that Dighe's batting was going to be a weapon.
And still on the subject of changes, here's one for the books. On the one hand, we have everyone and his uncle going around with long faces, lamenting that spin is dead in India, that we have stopped producing spinners. Says who? We are so rich in spin, that in every one of the last five Tests we have played, we have been able to play a different left arm spinner -- Sunil Joshi, Murali Karthik, Rahul Sanghvi, Venkatapathy Raju, and now Nilesh Kulkarni.
Reminds you of Elizabeth Taylor and Imelda Marcos and people of that ilk who, if legend is to be believed, only wore one dress once. If this were a five Test series, our list of spinners would begin to look like a metropolitan telephone directory, wouldn't it?
Says a lot for the "wealth of spinning talent" we have in this country. Doesn't say as much for a bunch of selectors who can't seem to make up their minds who, if anyone, is fit for the top grade -- but I am sure, even as I write this, that there will be a flood of letters from readers helpfully pointing out that you have to have minds, in the first place, to be able to make them up.
In passing, though, consider this -- if we won't persist with any one spinner, how on earth do we expect spinners to gain the confidence to bowl well?
Steve Waugh won the toss and opted for first strike. The third ball of the day had Slater walking back -- pushing without moving his feet, at a ball leaving his bat on the angle by left arm seamer Zahir Khan, for Laxman to hold well at second slip. Somehow, you get the feeling India won't figure high in Slater's list of favourite places to visit -- each time he comes here, he has a nightmare tour, and ends up getting benched.
Justin Langer came in at one drop, and seemed to be trying to prove that the Australian selectors didn't know what they were about when they dropped him for the one day series to follow. Cuts, drives, you name it he played it in a whirlwind assault on the Indian bowling -- but there was a high element of chance in his shot selection, and that one chance too many got him out. Harbajan went round the wicket, pitched an off break perfectly on a line close to off. Langer shaped to cut it through point, was beaten by bounce and turn, and edged for Dravid to hold well at slip.
Four runs later, India gained -- and let slip -- a superb opportunity to put Australia under enormous pressure. Hayden, who had been timing the ball sweetly right through, appeared to have some communications problems with Mark Waugh. The calling and running between wickets, especially during the first half of the third wicket partnership, was surprisingly inept for an Australian pair. Hayden with the score on 71/2 came dancing down the track, and chipped out to the on side. Again, there was some yes-no stuff, ending with Hayden being sent back. Meanwhile, the throw came rocketing in and Dighe, in position behind the stumps and with the batsman a good four yards out of his ground, missed the collection.
255 runs have been added since then, and Hayden -- who in each of his big innings this series has been let off at least once -- has been around to help accumulate every single one of them.
The let off was a pity because the Indian bowlers, in unhelpful conditions, were holding their nerve under a calculated assault by the Aussies. Ganguly, too, had set his field astutely, indicating that some homework has gone into the preparations this time -- thus, both Hayden and Mark Waugh found their favourite shots covered.
But the old failing of not taking their chances cost the fielding side dearly once more. With the score 96/2, Mark Waugh went down the track to Kulkarni. The left arm spinner, never one to turn the ball over much, got just enough side spin to beat the push -- and Dighe, again with the batsman yards out of his ground and not even trying to recover, fluffed a simple stumping, letting the ball through for four byes.
Mark Waugh benefitted. Out of form and short of runs, a failure here would have put him -- and his team -- under even more pressure. The let off let Waugh off the hook, and he gradually batted himself back into touch that, while well short of Mark Waugh's mid season form, still assumed an ominous aspect as the shots, especially on the on, came back into play. During his innings, he surpassed got to his 41st Test 50 and in the process, also surpassed Don Bradman's aggregate of 6996 Test runs for Australia.
Sairaj Bahutule finally took him out with the team score on 217 and his personal score on 70, when he held one back a bit. Waugh shaped to loft over midwicket, played too early, and found to his clearly expressed disgust the ball flaring off the thick outer edge for Badani, at mid off, to run back with the ball dropping over his shoulder, to make a tough running catch look very easy. Mark Waugh, just for the record, was on 9 when he was let off by Dighe.
From then on, it was all Hayden, aided and abetted by skipper Steve Waugh. The opener got his 3rd Test hundred and second on this tour with Australia's score reading 231/3, and just went on -- indomitable, implacable, unmoved by pace and spin.
Waugh, meanwhile, looked shaky for a good part of his innings. Sachin Tendulkar, introduced only in the 71st over, proved yet again that he is easily the best spinner in India right now -- as adept bowling off breaks to left handers as he is bowling leg breaks to the right handers. In fact, a joke doing the rounds is that the selectors are seriously considering moulding Tendulkar into a spinner who can bat a bit.
Tendulkar in course of an 8 over spell after tea, gave Waugh all kinds of headaches -- but the Aussie skipper, aware certainly that Australia needs to ensure it doesn't bat again in this Test, hung in there grimly. And recorded a little personal milestone of his own, when he went past Graham Gooch's tally of 8900 to become the third highest run-getter in Test cricket, with only Sunil Gavaskar and Allan Border ahead of him in the pecking order.
Another random stat: At the end of 83 overs, Australia had played out 371 dot balls, arguing a willingness to grind out the tough patches. The batsmen had hit 31 fours and six sixes -- but equally importantly, also chipped and patted and nudged and swept 77 singles, using the single as a weapon to put the Indian bowling under pressure.
Among the bowlers, Zahir Khan was incisive in spells, bowling particularly well in his spell just after tea when he got the ball to reverse. He did not, however, get much out of the pitch, and the Aussies played him with relative ease for the most part. Nilesh Kulkarni was steady and restrictive, not to mention unlucky. Sairaj Bahutule was at his best in his post-tea spell when, with an older ball, he got his leg breaks to curve, loop, bounce and turn. And Harbajan -- whom the Aussies have obviously decided to go after every time he comes to the bowling crease -- responded to the assault (100 runs off him in 26 overs) very well especially post tea, when he altered his line and length and for the first time in the day, got even the well set Hayden to eschew the sweep and the full-blooded drive.
India's day was the story of missed chances. And Australia's, about determined partnerships -- 63 off 69 for the second wicket, 150 off 240 for the third, 109 and counting for the fourth wicket. The first two sessions produced runs at an alarming rate and it was only once Sachin Tendulkar came on to bowl after tea -- his deeds firing up the other bowlers as well -- that the Australians checked in their charge, scoring just 78 in the final session off 31 overs.
With Waugh and Hayden at the crease and with Ponting and Gilchrist (the former out of form, the latter coming off a king pair in Calcutta) to follow, Australia will on day two be aiming for as close to 600 as they can manage. And if they achieve that total, then India will go in for its first innings knowing that the only two results that are possible are a draw, if they continue their Calcutta form with the bat, or a defeat.
If Rudyard Kipling were alive today, and watching, he would have been sorely tempted to write a sequel to that poem of his. 'If you can seize your chances....'
'If you can keep your head while those around you are losing theirs...'
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