3rd Test: Ind v. Aus: Day 3: Sehwag keeps India still on Top on Flat Pitch!

Virendra Sehwag kept India's hope alive by taking 3 crucial wicktes out of the 4 wickets that fell on Day 3. The first hour of play was well played by Hayden and Katich. They did not lose their cool and ensured that they stay in the crease.

Hayden, the usual aggressive batsman compared to Katich was slow today mostly due to his poor runs in the first two tests. Katich reached his 50 in 91 balls with 8 boundaries. The first wicket added 123 runs before Katich was bowled by Mishra. The much awaited break through for Indians came in the 20th over of the day.

Ponting and Hayden played good shots of the pads, swept few deliveries and hit few on the point region. Hayden scored his maiden fifty of this series in his 96th delivery with 9 fours and a six off Mishra.

Sehwag trouble Hayden a little bit. The edge dit not carry to Dravid at slip and was beaten couple of times. When the score was on 202, Sehwag changed the angle and brought one quicker and straight to the stumps. Hayden was caught on the crease hitting just above the knee roll and trapped leb before. He scored 83.

Ponting reached fifty and looked comfortable to score another 100 in this tour. He hit two fours off Zaheer Khan and that should have added more confidence to him. In the next over, Sehwag flighted the delivery on the off stump which invited Ponting to come out and drive. Ponting missed the ball and the ball turned and knocked the middle stump. Ponting scored 87 with 14 fours.

Kumble injured his right little finger while trying to catch in short mid-wicket. He was sent to hospital for treating his bleeding finger.

Dhoni took the new ball, but brought in Sehwag quickly realizing that he is turning the ball well. He bowled Hussey through a typical off-spinner delivery that pitched on the middle stump and turned to strike the off stump. Hussey scored 53.

Michael Clarke survivied the last ball of the day through a lucky inside edge. Otherwise, one more time in the series, he would have been out in the last over.

The session before lunch is crucial for India, if they wanted to win. They have to pick at least 4 more wickets before lunch and complete the Australian Innings at least one hour before Tea.

Assuming India has 150 runs lead and can score at 4 runs per over in the 40 overs, they can end the day with 310 run lead. Score another 50 runs in the morning 8 overs and have Australia bat at least 80 overs which would be difficult on the last day.

Scoreboard at the end of Day 3:

India 1st Innings 613 for 7 declared in 161 overs (Sehwag 1, Gambhir 206, Dravid 11, Tendulkar 68, Laxman 200 not out, Ganguly 5, Dhoni 27, Kumble 45, Zaheer Khan 28 not out, Extras--22 (b 6, lb 8, w 2, nb 6), Lee 30-2-119-1, S Clark 33-9-69-0, Johnson 32-4-142-3, Watson 20-4-66-2, White 15-1-73-0, M Clarke 14-0-59-0, Katich 15-3-60-1, Ponting 2-0-11-0)

Fall of Wickets: 1-5 (Sehwag, 2.1 ov), 2-27 (Dravid, 10.4 ov), 3-157 (Tendulkar, 51.5 ov), 4-435 (Gambhir, 123.6 ov), 5-444 (Ganguly, 126.2 ov), 6-481 (Dhoni, 133.4 ov), 7-579 (Kumble, 155.4 ov)

Australia 1st Innings 338 for 4 in 105 overs (Hayden 83, Katich 64, Ponting 87, Hussey 53, Michael Clarke 21 batting, Watson 4 batting, Extras--26 (b 16, lb 3, w 1, nb 6), Zaheer Khan 16-4-57-0, I Sharma 19-5-46-0, Kumble 17-3-53-0, Mishra 30-7-95-1, Sehwag 22-4-66-3, Tendulkar 1-0-2-0)

Fall of Wickets: 1-123 (Katich, 34.1 ov), 2-202 (Hayden, 57.2 ov), 3-284 (Ponting, 85.4 ov), 4-326 (Hussey, 101.6 ov)

1st ODI: Australia win by 180 runs!

As expected, Australia have beaten Bangladesh by a big margin of 180 runs in the first ODI and lead the series 1-0.

Match: 1st ODI
Venue: Marrara Cricket Ground, Darwin
Date: August 30, 2008
Teams: Australia and Bangladesh
Captains: Michael Clarke and Mohammad Ashraful
Toss: Bangladesh won the toss and decided to field
Result: Australia won by 180 runs
Series: Australia lead the series 1-0
Man of the Match: MEK Hussey off Australia
Score:

Australia 254 for 8 in 50 overs (SE Marsh 76, JR Hopes 22, MJ Clarke 14, MEK Hussey 85, DJ Hussey 24, BJ Haddin 3, CL White 9, MG Johnson 0, B Geeves 0 not out, Extras-21 (b 1, lb 7, w 6, nb 7), Mashrafe Mortaza 0 for 31, Shahadat Hossain 3 for 42, Nazmul Hossain 1 for 55, Shakib Al Hasan 2 for 46, Abdur Razzak 1 for 44, Alok Kapali 1 for 28) beat Bangladesh 74 all out in 27.4 overs (Tamim Iqbal 21, Mehrab Hossain Jr. 0, Mohammad Ashraful 5, Raqibul Hasan 14, Shakib Al Hasan 7, Alok Kapali 12, Dhiman Ghosh 1, Abdur Razzak 4, Mashrafe Mortaza 5 not out, Nazmul Hossain 0, Shahadat Hossain 0, Extras-5 (w 5), NW Bracken 0 for 23, SR Clark 1 for 18, MG Johnson 2 for 10, MJ Clarke 1 for 7, B Geeves 2 for 11, CL White 3 for 5)

4th ODI: Australia win the last over Thriller by 1 run!

Michael Clarke held is nerve and chose his bowlers very well in the thirlling 1 run victory against West Indies and to take 4-0 lead in the 5 match ODI Series.

West Indies needed 28 in the last five overs. With experienced Chandrapaul in the crease and 6 wickets in hand, any team would have won it, in fact, West Indies would have won it 9 out of 10 times.

Lee's over costed 6 and Hopes next over added 9 to the total. Findlayhit a huge six over long on and that reduced the tension in the West Indies camp.

Lee got Findlay caught brilliantly by Michael Hussey bowled and more importantly gave away just 1 run.

Last two overs 12 runs, 5 wickets in hand. Bracken bowled the penultimate over and had Chanderpaul clean bowled through a slow off cutter in the last ball. West Indies scored 4 runs in that over.

Last over, 8 runs needed, 4 wickets in hand. Shane Watson gave single in all the ball. The last ball required 3 runs and they scored a single of the last ball.

The surprise was that no one tried to slog it because they had the wicket anyway. They didn't take the risk and lost the match in hand.

In the presentation ceremony, Gayle said, "We thought we could have got it. I should have carried on and saw the team home. The support was very good. I apologise for the loss."

Clarke said, "Ricky can get it [captaincy] back! The guys did a fantastic job. Gayle played really well but full credit to the guys who hung in there. Every body who gets a chance to play to Australia love it and cherish it."

Match: 4th ODI
Venue: Warner Park, Basseterre, St Kitts
Date: July 4, 2008
Teams: West Indies and Australia
Captains: CH Gayle and MJ Clarke
Toss: West Indies won the toss and decided to field
Result: Australia won by 1 run
Series: Australia leading 4-0
Man of the Match: A Symonds off Australia
Score:

Australia 282 for 8 in 50 overs (SE Marsh 16, SR Watson 20, MEK Hussey 37, MJ Clarke 36, A Symonds 87, DJ Hussey 50, JR Hopes 0, L Ronchi 12, B Lee 7 not out, MG Johnson 0 not out, Extras--17 (lb 7, w 7, nb 3), FH Edwards 10-0-53-2, DBL Powell 10-1-66-2, DJ Bravo 10-0-57-1, DJG Sammy 4-0-18-1, MO Miller 10-1-56-1, CH Gayle 6-1-25-1) beat West Indies 281 for 6 in 50 overs (CH Gayle 92, XM Marshall 0, RR Sarwan 63, S Chanderpaul 53, DJ Bravo 31, SE Findlay 9, D Ramdin 5 not out, DJG Sammy 3 not out, Extras--25 (lb 6, w 17, nb 2), B Lee 10-0-64-3, NW Bracken 10-0-50-1, MG Johnson 10-0-40-0, JR Hopes 10-0-63-1, DJ Hussey 2-0-20-0, SR Watson 7-0-33-1, MJ Clarke 1-0-5-0)

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4th Match: India win by 5 Wickets - Ishanth Sharma Fired Aussies!

For a change, this time real pace bowling helped India to crash the world's best team and ODI World Champions! It has also created fear among the Aussies!

Australia won the toss and decided to bat on the MCG and after that nothing went in favor of them! Gilchrist was judged leg before in the first over of the match while the TV replay showed an inside edge. Hayden who looked dangerous was caught behind chasing the ball that pitched little away from the batsman and edge the ball to Dhoni. Ricky, the batsman in poor form continued with his low run form and got out of 9. Clarke (11) and Symonds (14) also did not last long and that put Australia in deep trouble. Haddin was stumped off Harbhajan for five leaving Australia at 92 for 6. Only Hussey was managed to cross 50 and he was not out on 65 till the end of the innings. Ishanth took 4 wickets and Sreesanth 3 wickets. The Aussies did not play their full quota of 50 overs was really a surprising end.

Chasing 160, India lost Shewag early when the score was 18. Everyone except Dhoni was shocked when Pathan entered as the third batsman. He added 18 off 30 balls and was judged leg before off Johnson. The inform Gambhir joined Tendulakar and added 35 runs and was caught by Clarke off Lee. Tendulkar immediately followed him when he was on 44. The poor form batsman of Indian team Yuravaraj followed Tendulakar with 3 leaving India struggle at 102 for 5 needing another 58 runs. The sensible batting by young Rohit Sharma and skipper Dhoni lead India to victory during the 46th over. Everyone expected that India would win comfortably with a bonus point, but surprisingly India had to fight and win. After Sachin's exist, it was better to win than to go for a bonus point. Ishant declared player of the match for his wonderful bowling performance.

Final Score
Australia 159 all out in 43.1 overs (Hayden 25; Hussey 65 not out; Sreesanth 3 for 31; Ishanth 4 for 38; Pathan 2 for 26) lost to India 160 for 5 in 45.5 overs (Tendulkar 44; Rohit Sharma 39 not out; Johnson 2 for 24)
Man of the Match: Ishanth Sharma (India)