Australia faced a stiff target to level the series against India after a crucial 108-run stand between Mahendra Singh Dhoni and Harbhajan Singh in the fourth and final Test yesterday.
The visitors were 13 without loss at stumps on the penultimate day, chasing 382 to win. Simon Katich (8) and Matthew Hayden (5) were at the crease.
India were tottering at 166-6 in their second innings at the tea interval, before posting 295, thanks to skipper Dhoni (55) and lower-order batsman Harbhajan (52).
PHOTO: AP
Dhoni and Harbhajan kept the Australian attack at bay with their responsible knocks after their team had lost six wickets for just 50 runs in a dramatic afternoon collapse.
India lead 1-0 in the series following their 320-run victory in the second Test in Mohali.
Debutant spinner Jason Krejza (4-143) grabbed two wickets off successive balls and seamer Shane Watson (4-42) two scalps in three overs to boost Australia’s hopes of squaring the series. Krejza, 25, took 12 wickets in the match.
But Dhoni and Harbhajan counterattacked to rally their team. Dhoni hit four boundaries in his 12th Test half-century and Harbhajan struck five fours in his sixth half-century.
Australia skipper Ricky Ponting considerably eased the pressure when he pressed part-time slow bowlers Michael Hussey and Michael Clarke into action in the last session, apparently to make up for a slow over-rate.
When Dhoni was caught by a diving Hussey at silly-point off Krejza after scoring a second successive half-century, India were virtually safe.
India threatened to bat Australia out of the match with a 116-run stand for the opening wicket between an aggressive Virender Sehwag (92) and debutant Murali Vijay (41), before Krejza and Watson struck.
Watson began the slide when he trapped Vijay leg before wicket and then had out-of-form Rahul Dravid (3) caught behind.
Dravid finished the series with just 120 runs at an average of 17.14.
Pace man Brett Lee, on a drip for dehydration on Saturday afternoon, bowled his heart out on an easy-paced pitch in his five-over second spell and got the prize wicket of Sehwag.
The Indian opener looked set to complete his 16th century in 64 Tests before edging a lifting delivery to wicketkeeper Brad Haddin, who dived to his left to bring off a low catch. He hit one six and 10 fours.
Krejza came back strongly to dismiss in-form Venkatsai Laxman and Sourav Ganguly with successive deliveries.
He bowled Laxman (4) with a gem of a delivery that turned sharply from outside the off-stump to knock back the leg.
Ganguly, clapped by the Australians as he came in for his last Test innings, fell for a golden duck when he offered a return catch to Krejza.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier