DAY FIVE

Indians needed to bowl out Aussies as early as possible but the Aussies had their plan set as the players were in middle both Haddin and Watson was looking to attack. They played some good shots and added 75 valuable runs to the total before Watson was bowled by Ishant Sharma. The debutant Cameron White joined Haddin and they kept playing some good shots. Declaration came when Aussies where 228/6 lead by 298 runs Haddin scored 35* and White who scored 18* added 25 runs in 3.4 overs . Needing 299 to win off minimum 83 overs. Indians were in deep trouble as they didn’t want another Sydney repeated here. Shewag fell early finding the lone slip off Stuart Clark and the man who was known for killing time, “The Wall”, Rahul Dravid was caught off Brett Lee by Ricky Ponting which was indeed a superb catch. With just 24/2 on board and the two players who has better average on fourth innings out in the pavilion shewag (six) and Dravid (five). India were in deep trouble, when Sachin walked to bat India were like losing the test match, but Sachin ensured that doesn’t happed his stand with Gambhir where he added 53 runs with the left hander before he was bowled by a slow Mitchell Johnson delivery after scoring 29 runs off 81 balls.

Laxman joined Sachin in the middle and these two showed the meld of experience with talent as Sachin seemed in good touch and Laxman too was in a defensive mode as these too added 61 runs for the 4th wicket before Sachin got out becoming the first test victim to Cameron White when he miscued a drive to Clarke @ short cover he was dismissed for 49 and 15 runs short of Lara’s record. Cameron White broke into tears after getting the legends wicket as his first and he is now to seventh debutant to bag Tendulkar as his first wicket. India still had a tough task ahead when Ganguly joined Laxman and these two batted and the play was called off twice because of Bad light and finally the captains agreed it to be a draw.

Laxman scored 42* and Ganguly was 26* and India made 177/4. Aussies were pretty disappointed and they missed a quality spinner’s presence in the team. Brett Lee, Stuart Clark, Mitchell Johnson and Cameron White all took one wicket each. Zaheer Khan was adjudged the Man of the Match for his all round performance. And the experienced FAB FOUR saved India from a match which seemed to be swinging in Aussies favor.