Indians give a fitting reply

Jul 28, 2010 |

Correspondent

Tags:

July 28: Sachin Tendulkar laid out a careful selection of objectives and achieved it with some good old-fashioned Test batting. Paying careful attention to every minute detail that encompasses duration cricket, Tendulkar was a study in concentration as he helped India overcome the jitters with Suresh Raina on the third day of the second Test at the SSC here on Tuesday.

Their 141-run unbroken fifth wicket stand took India to 382/4 at stumps and to the threshold of safety. Tendulkar who made his fifth hundred in six Tests this year and 48th overall is batting on 108 (272m, 181b, 14x4, 1x6) while Raina is on 66 (145m, 133b, 8x4). The loss of three quick wickets in the opening session pushed India into an alternate plan. Kumar Sangakkara did not play his cards right. With a mammoth total to fall back on, the field through the day was predominately on-side. There was no real attempt to force the batsmen to make mistakes. Instead, the approach was to wait. It worked well briefly but Tendulkar, first with Laxman and later with Raina, stood like a rock.

There were many moments of brilliance from Tendulkar. With debutant Suraj Randiv probing in an untiring 15-over spell from the Pavilion End, the veteran brought out the sweep to telling effect. Singles were rotated with consummate ease. It was not a fluent start but he settled in well. Laxman looked on top of his game when he was given out. The ball from Ajantha Mendis that came in looked like missing leg stump but Rod Tucker ruled in favour of the bowler.

The first session was full of action. What looked like a never-ending first wicket stand between Virender Sehwag and M. Vijay, ended when the former decided to bring up another Test hundred with a six off Randiv. The shot was not the percentage option and Sehwag paid heavily. The bowler floated one through straighter to beat the batsman in flight, Prasanna Jayawardene did the rest to leave Sehwag stranded a run short of his 21st century.

Thilan Samaraweera grassing a chance offered by Sehwag when on 89 did not prove costly.

Post new comment

<form action="/comment/reply/24777" accept-charset="UTF-8" method="post" id="comment-form"> <div><div class="form-item" id="edit-name-wrapper"> <label for="edit-name">Your name: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="60" name="name" id="edit-name" size="30" value="Reader" class="form-text required" /> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-mail-wrapper"> <label for="edit-mail">E-Mail Address: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="64" name="mail" id="edit-mail" size="30" value="" class="form-text required" /> <div class="description">The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.</div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-comment-wrapper"> <label for="edit-comment">Comment: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <textarea cols="60" rows="15" name="comment" id="edit-comment" class="form-textarea resizable required"></textarea> </div> <fieldset class=" collapsible collapsed"><legend>Input format</legend><div class="form-item" id="edit-format-1-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-1"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-1" name="format" value="1" class="form-radio" /> Filtered HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd></li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-format-2-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-2"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-2" name="format" value="2" checked="checked" class="form-radio" /> Full HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> </fieldset> <input type="hidden" name="form_build_id" id="form-3c4542fe2762605d6ec048c70bbde472" value="form-3c4542fe2762605d6ec048c70bbde472" /> <input type="hidden" name="form_id" id="edit-comment-form" value="comment_form" /> <fieldset class="captcha"><legend>CAPTCHA</legend><div class="description">This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.</div><input type="hidden" name="captcha_sid" id="edit-captcha-sid" value="85442110" /> <input type="hidden" name="captcha_response" id="edit-captcha-response" value="NLPCaptcha" /> <div class="form-item"> <div id="nlpcaptcha_ajax_api_container"><script type="text/javascript"> var NLPOptions = {key:'c4823cf77a2526b0fba265e2af75c1b5'};</script><script type="text/javascript" src="http://call.nlpcaptcha.in/js/captcha.js" ></script></div> </div> </fieldset> <span class="btn-left"><span class="btn-right"><input type="submit" name="op" id="edit-submit" value="Save" class="form-submit" /></span></span> </div></form>