India vs Australia Fourth Adelaide Test Match Highlights

India vs Australia 4th Test Day 1 Highlights
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India V Australia Day 1 : First Session

Sachin Tendulkar 124* at Adelaide Video


Sachin Tendulkar's 39th Test century carried India to 309 for 5 by the close of the first day in Adelaide

Watch free streaming cricket video highlights from day 1 of the Adelaide Test Match – India versus Australia. Day One was all about Sachin Tendulkar, Sachin Tendulkar, VVS Laxman, Brett Lee, Mitchell Johnson. Tendulkar’s hundred was easily one of the best centuries he has ever scored in his career. 124 not out at the end of first day’s play at the Adelaide Oval - his 39th century in test cricket.

These are short highlights. More detailed highlights will be put up later.

India won the toss and Anil Kumble in the toss interview seemed to have a look about him that went – It’s destiny. Well, we’ll have to wait and see. Virender Sehwag like at Perth showed why he should never be dropped again from the test team. First day of a test match and within 15 minutes, Ricky Ponting had a defensive field (relative to the so called Australian aggressive cricket demeanour) with a deep point and just two slips. Brett Lee bowled beautifully later on but at the start he sent a few down legside, something that has hardly happened in this series. And you can’t help but believe all this had to do with Sehwag being around. He got to a fifty (finally) – when he does that in test cricket he usually gets a big one. There were fewer plays and misses compared to Perth and Sehwag was actually shot-selective on some occasions without his scoring rate dropping. Mitchell Johnson bowled beautifully getting them to swing in apart from his stock leaving the right hander delivery.

On to Sachin Tendulkar – he might have taken 18 odd balls to get off the mark, but over the years, Tendulkar fans will know within an over or so if a hundred is on the cards. His judgment outside off was spot on and some defense shots to Stuart Clark – drop dead gorgeous i.e. the Glenn McGrath line of Clark dropped dead, utterly smothered.

His first four scoring shots were four boundaries (breathtaking drives) including three consecutively off Mitchell Johnson. What makes this innings special is that the Australians were chipping away at the wickets until of course Laxman walked in. At no stage did Tendulkar slow down. Even when Ricky Ponting had a spread field, both Sachin and Laxman ran many twos and singles.

Sometime back during Australia’s tour of India in 2007, Brad Hogg had got Tendulkar out once. He’d then gone up to him later with a photograph of the moment and asked him for an autograph. Sachin signed it with ‘Never Again’ across it. To do that and to dominate and take on Hogg right through the series is quite amazing. Today was the toughest day for Hogg in this test series. He bowled around 55 deliveries to Sachin which cost him 60 odd runs. A wily and intelligent bowler when he’s on top, Tendulkar probably saved India a few more wickets with his attacking cricket, which also saw Michael Clarke taken out of the attack. India in this series have allowed part time spinners like Andrew Symonds and Clarke strangle the flow of the game on several occasions.

Some things only Tendulkar will and can do. Right from the start of this test cricket series, he’s been playing a sweep shot over midwicket to Hogg. Often termed slog-sweep, we’ll omit the slog part considering the batsman in question. And he kept with it even today. The paddle sweep also came out against the spinners. From the late 70s Sachin raced to his hundred with a few down the track fours and sixes. The hundred jinx he had until the Sydney test match suddenly looks so far away.

VVS Laxman is the only Indian batsman other than Tendulkar to score 1000 or more runs in Australia. Though his scoring wasn’t as quick as normal he looked absolutely at ease and the usual flicks and back foot drives were there. A good 51 before Adam Gilchrist took an easy catch off Lee after dropping him earlier. That’s another feature of the Australian team since Perth. They’re dropping catches – it’s something that has been known but not truly believed for years now: If you have the ability and play somewhere close to your best, Australia can and will mess up on the field.

Mahendra Singh Dhoni crawled to 6 off 54 balls. He came in at a tough time though. A thought for Ganguly fans – where are all the young gun batsmen in test cricket. How come they only want to play in the one day team. First play, be good enough to displace the Big Four, then f***kin talk.

Brett Lee bowled an extended furious 10 over third spell, and like he has consistently done in this test series, took a wicket in the spell. He should have got Laxman a little earlier than he did – there was a nice moment between Adam Gilchrist and Lee after Laxman was finally out, with Lee brushing away Gilchrist’s apologies for not having earlier pouched the catch.

It’s easy to look at Asad Rauf’s umpiring and say it was poor today with Dravid benefiting early on and Sourav Ganguly ruled out to a ball that would have skipped over the stumps. But there were several very close decisions that looked out to the naked eye but turned out to be fantastic decisions. Billy Bowden however might have missed one – he didn’t go to the third umpire for a stumping chance against Tendulkar. Replays showed a very tight one that probably would have been ruled in the batsman’s favour.

Anyway, wonderful second day of cricket to look forward to at Adelaide tomorrow. Take it easy for now.

Trivia info - Sunil Gavaskar scored the 100th test hundred scored at the Adelaide Oval. Tendulkar today scored the 150th. There are several other coincidences across the two careers, the most amazing being how closely their number of runs and hundreds match each other, if you were to split up their career into batches of 25 test matches.