Indian skipper bowled a magical spell (5/84) on day I of first test against Australia at Melbourne to reduce them from 135/0 at lunch to 337/9 at stumps on Day1. The Boxing Day test match was milestone for the venue as well as former Indian skipper Saurav Ganguly who is playing his 100th test match.
Earlier Australian captain Ricky Ponting won the toss and decides to bat first on beautiful sunshine batting condition at Melbourne. Left-handed opener Matthew Hayden slammed his 19th century at home in an aggregate of 28 to shatter the great Sir Donald Bradman’s world record of three-figure scores on home soil in what is the 100th Test at the MCG and also the 100th for Ganguly.
Both Australian opener Phil Jaques (66 runs) and Mathew Hayden (124 runs) put on 135 runs for the first wicket before Indian skipper Anil Kumble gave first strike for his team, when he bowled googly to stumped Phil Jaques by M.S Dhoni. Zaheer then removed the dangerous Ricky Ponting (4 runs) with a superb delivery that moved away after pitching to dislodge the Aussie skipper’s off stump. Kumble came back to trap Michael Hussey (2 runs) lbw as Australia fell from 135 without loss to 165-3.
However Michael Clark (20 runs) and Mathew Hayden put on solid 60 runs partnership to get Australia back on track. R.P Singh removes Michael Clark to break the dangerous looking partnership and reduce the Australian total to 225/4.Three overs later Zaheer able to picked up dangerous looking century maker Mathew Hayden, when he gave simple catch to Rahul Dravid at mid-on.
Kumble strikes in quick succession to remove Andrew Symonds (34 runs), Adam Gilchrist (23 runs) and Brett Lee for duck to complete his fifth wicket haul.
Final playing XI for Both the teams
India: Rahul Dravid, Wasim Jaffer, VVS Laxman, Sachin Tendulkar, Yuvraj Singh, Saurav Ganguly Zaheer Khan, MS Dhoni (WK/VC), Anil Kumble (C), Harbhajan Singh, RP Singh.
Australia:, ML Hayden, Phil Jaques, Ricky Ponting (C), Michael Clarke, Michael Hussey, Andrew Symonds, Adam Gilchrist (WK), Brad Hogg, Mitchell Johnson, Brett Lee, Stuart Clark.
