India halts Aussie winning streak for the second time

Jan 19, 2008 Cricket

It was simply superb to see the Indian cricket team beat Australia today.

Not only was this fantastic because it happened at Perth, where the Aussies have always dominated visiting teams, but also because we wrapped up the match in four days !! Can’t recall when we last did this.

This was also special because for the second time, India halted the Aussie’s 16 match winning streak. If Dravid, Laxman, and Harbhajan were the architects of that victory in 2001, this was one where almost everyone contributed at various times during both innings, thereby making it more of a team effort, coming as it did after the incident packed second test at Sydney.

For a while though, it seemed the Aussies, chasing 413, would pull off a Houdini act, with Michael Clark, and then Mitchell Johnson and Stuart Clark going great guns, before falling short by just 72 runs.

Some of the high points for me;

Watching Ishant Sharma bowl to Ponting (who fell to him in both innings)
Seeing Irfan Pathan back in action with both bat and ball
RP Singh’s bowling in both innings
Sehwag bowling Gilchrist round his legs

If this seems biased towards the bowlers, well it is, because I don’t think anyone expected our bowling attack to dismiss Australia twice in this match, let alone within 50 overs in the first innings.

Venkatesh Prasad later revealed that he received some advice from Aussie great, Dennis Lillee, about how to use the wind factor at the WACA, especially the Fremantle Doctor, which allowed the Indian bowlers to “out-swing” their Aussie counterparts.

On to Adelaide now, and here’s looking forward to a series levelling victory !!