Virender Sehwag bowled the best bowling spell of his life, a bruised and battered Anil Kumble tried to bring all his experience into the play, while Amit Mishra made an effort to repeat his Mohali-magic on a pitch that saw it spit and puff on occasions and play tricks like a mischievous kid on others. Yet, the fashion in which the Australian batting intelligently combined aggression and defence to thwart any such Indian advances was, for me, the talking point of this match. Chasing a mammoth score of more than 600 runs, there is always that extra pressure on the team, and when the conditions are not really conducive to stroke-play, many a side have capitulated like nine-pins. Australia showed that despite a weak bowling attack, their batting could be termed as anything but that, and came within 36 runs of overhauling the Indian total. It was all a combination of some spunk, rightful mix of aggression and defensive batting as the situation demanded, and some butter-fingers by the Indian fielders.

There has been some criticism about the pitch that was churned out for the encounter as there would be, when one has only two completed innings at the end of the fourth day. The wicket may have been slightly tilted towards the willow-wielders, and yet, by the time it was the third day, it had begun to assist their counterparts. Sehwag had started to bowl like a menacing Muralitharan, minus the popping out of the eyes, and each time he fired that quicker off-spinner outside the off-stump, the batsman had no clue about the whereabouts of the red cherry. Sometime, it spun viciously, smearing a chunk of the pitch on itself, while on other occasions, the deliveries went straight on, with no perceptible change in the bowler’s action.
One would have thought that battling such a difficult wicket would have been of grave concern for any visiting teams, but the Aussies batted like they had been competing in the Ranji trophy all this while. Matthew Hayden had been woefully out of touch, and he came out firing all cylinders each time the bowlers erred. Simon Katich’s batting style is a little anachronistic, yet very effective, and he got to another half-century in the series. Ricky Ponting had got the monkey off his back by smashing a century in the Bangalore test, but fallen by the wayside in the other three innings. He retorted back with another well-compiled 87, but the best batting performance came from the under-fire Michael Clarke.

Clarke had not looked in the best of touches even during his battling half-century at Mohali. This was coming at the back of three successive not-so-great performances and being vilified as the man behind Andrew Symonds’ ouster. A failure here would not have given his team the jitters, but also made his position in the team untenable. It did not come to that, as Clarke played one of the innings of his life. Going into the crease when the spinners were already on, he mixed caution and aggression in equal dose, and used his feet to absolute perfection against both Sehwag and Mishra. It was not so much the fact that he danced like a ballet dancer, but the end-result in reaching to the exact pitch of the delivery before hoisting the bowlers into the out-field.
On those very few occasions when he did not manage to reach the ball, he has been able to check his shot in time and get back into the realms of safety.

The rest of the batsmen in the lower-order, all played their part to perfection; even upto the extent of looking ugly, yet effective. From a position where India could have commanded a lead of around 150 runs – at least – the Australians managed to restrict it down to only 36.

For me, the Australian batting in this test match was quite extraordinary, despite all the talks of a batsman-friendly pitch. Such was the effect of the total that was been put up by Australia, that by the end of the fourth day, the pressure was back on the Indians, having to bat at least half of the fifth day to steer them to safety. It was a sort of an inning that would inculcate that belief amongst the visiting batsmen after their previous performances, and stand them in good stead for the fourth test match at Nagpur.

Only for the Aussie bowling to come good now and things could just be a little different for them in this series.