Watching Indian batting today morning was an eye sore. In the first over itself, Sourav ran out and the next ball Rahul Dravid was plumb in front. Rahul Dravid is in awful form with the bat and he deserves a break for sometime. Yuvaraj looked completely out of touch and played a ball away from his body to edge it to Gilchrist. Uthappa started with flourish and raised the expectations. He struck some sweetly timed strokes and was well set. But a beauty of an inswinger from Mitchell Johnson had in plumb in front. Dhoni came and went in a breeze. The only scoring run Dhoni scored was a mis-timed "chinese" cut which ran to the fine leg boundary. India was reduced to 43 for 5 wickets.
One thing that really surprised me is the urgency shown by the Indian batsmen to get back to the comfort of the pavilion!! The top five batsmen came and went in a hurry. None of them showed any attitude to stay and build an innings.
The only lone batsmen fighting the battle is Sachin Tendulkar, who is playing his 400th match. This is a real achievement considering the fact that he made is debut in 1989, if I am not mistaken. He is meddling the ball well and the timing is sweet. There were couple of exquisite cover drives of Mitchell Johnson and Brett Lee. His favourite shot, a flick through the mid-wicket for a boundary was good to watch.
The score now reads as 81for 5 at the end of 20 overs. Sachin and Irfan Pathan were batting and they have added 38 runs of 64 balls. Murali Kartik can bat a bit. Harbhajan and Zaheer can swing their bats for some quick runs. I expect India would reach somewhere close to 200 before being bowled out. I pray that Indian batsmen make my prediction go wrong by crossing the 200 mark.
There is no devil in the pitch and the difficulties are created by Indian batsmen. So I expect Australia to steamroll when they bat in the afternoon.
Badrinath, though was in the 14 didnt get a chance to play this match. But I am sure he will get a chance for the next match. India cannot afford to have all the three senior players, Sachin, Rahul and Sourav. My guess is, Sourav will make way for Badrinath. If Rahul is not going to score runs in the next two matches, his place would also be at stake, I guess.
Lets see how this match turns out in the afternoon.
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