NEWS
OTHER SPORTS
DIARY
PEOPLE
MATCH REPORTS
SLIDE SHOW
ARCHIVES

Oz down and almost out against Lanka

Talk of turnarounds -- earlier this year, Sri Lanka looked down, and damned near out. A team in disarray, internal bickering, politics -- everything that could go wrong, was.

And suddenly, it is all back together -- or so it would seem, as you watch the side take a firm grip on the first Test against Australia.

At the end of day two, Australia in its second innings had managed to get to 89/6, having played 42 overs. Effectively, that meant that Australia were 43/6, since Lanka had a 46-run lead on the first innings.

Aussie opener Michael Slater looked to have got over the early fidgets and was in fact middling the ball quite nicely when he unaccountably went back to an arm ball from Murali, played for turn that wasn't there, and was trapped plumb in front.

Justin Langer, who like Slater, Blewett and Healy have been inducted into the Test team after sitting out the one-day series, looked in woeful touch right from the get go. Unable to comprehend either the bowling or the pitch, the left-hander took to sticking his bat behind his pads and offering no shot at pretty much everything. There were two successive appeals for LBW off Vaas, and the second one got the nod from the umpire. Quite right too -- on subcontinental wickets where the ball doesn't bounce as much as say in Australia, pad play is fraught with risk.

Mark Waugh is a batsman who likes it to come on to him. In the first innings, he pushed too early, not making allowance for the ball coming slower off the deck, and ended up giving a gentle return catch. This time, Vaas bowled him a nothing ball, slanting across the right hander, only for Waugh to lean back and try to force off the back foot. Problem being, he got everything wrong -- the foot was not fully back and across, the batsman was playing away from the body and outside the line of the ball, and all he managed to do was drag a ball that should have disappeared to the coverpoint fence back onto his stumps.

Greg Blewett had more than his share of luck on the day. Besides the early reprieve at the hands of umpire Venkatraghavan (see earlier report, appended at the end of this one), he was let off by the normally reliable Upul Chandana at square leg as he pulled too early at a ball from Nuwan Zoysa and gave square leg what appeared to be a dolly. Blewett, never comfortable against pace or spin (a pointer to one danger of the two teams policy Australia follows), hung on grimly until -- natural justice at work here -- an umpiring error did for him. Blewett went for the sweep, took the ball on the pad, and then onto forearm, silly point held and the umpire upheld the appeal, though neither bat nor glove had touched the ball.

Ricky Ponting, who played the earlier ODI series and has looked in good touch (this could have something to do with the fact that he has had more opportunities than Blewett, Slater and Langer to guage the pitch conditions and the bowling), was joined by Ian Healy. The Aussie keeper, however, didn't last too long -- Murali tossed one right up, Healy looked to have got it covered as he played defensively off the back foot, but could only watch as the ball went off the thick inner edge onto pad and then onto the leg stump. At that point, Australia were 59/5 -- effectively, 13/5. With Steve Waugh stuck in Colombo. Ditto Jason Gillespie who partnered Ponting in a fighting partnership in the first innings.

Warne and Ponting did the right thing, ignoring the aggressive field placing and tight bowling and concentrating on playing their natural game. However, one horrible mixup in the calling did for the former -- Ponting played firmly to mid on, called for the run, spotted skipper Jayasuriya racing in to attack the ball and sent Warne back. The pick up and direct hit, however, defeated Warne's desperate dive and had him out by a foot or more, to reduce Australia to 75/6.

The next over nearly produced another one. Ponting played square on the on, Colin Miller took off down the track seemingly oblivious of Ponting's frantic "NO"s, and at one point, both batsmen were at the same end of the wicket. Jayasuriya, in his hurry to get the ball back, let it go through his legs and gave Miller a reprieve.

Miller managed to hang on, more by luck than good judgement. And Ponting, batting 22/53, reprised his form of the first innings, looking to be the only Aussie batsman who had an inkling of how to cope with the conditions and the bowling.

This Test will end in a result -- with three days to go, that is a given. The only hope Australia has at this point is that Steve Waugh and Gillespie, suitably patched up, will return from Colombo tonight. That the former will be able to live through the pain and partner Ponting in an immense recovery. And so on, and so forth.

Given that 26 wickets have fallen in 2 days, the prospects for such a lengthy, match-saving partnership seem rather bleak. The smart money will be on the game ending before stumps on day three -- in favour of Lanka.

Luck and ill-luck appeared to be dogging Australia in equal measure, on the second day of the first Test against Sri Lanka at Kandy.

Going in for its second knock 46 runs behind Lanka on the first innings, Aussie opener Greg Blewett received an incredible reprieve off the third over of the innings, when Vaas made one go outside Blewett's off. The batsman, hopelessly beaten, was drawn into the push, managed a huge edge to first slip and, despite the audible nick and the huge deviation as ball passed bat, umpire S Venkatraghavan gave the decision in the batsman's failure.

Australia were 0/0 at the end of 3 overs, on a pitch that has helped both swing and spin, and facing an uphill task to save the match. More so given that Steve Bernard, Australia's team manager, informed the media during the break that both Steve Waugh and Jason Gillespie are officially hors de combat.

The two had collided in the outfield while going for a catch offered by Mahela Jayawardene in the Lankan first innings, off the bowling of Colin Miller. The two players were rushed to a local Kandy hospital, where it was diagnosed that Waugh senior has a broken nose, which will need to be reset, while Jason Gillespie, no stranger to injuries, has a broken tibia.

Both have been immediately helicoptered to Colombo for more specialised treatment -- Lankan skipper Sanath Jayasuriya pulling strings to organise the emergency airlift.

Meanwhile, Sri Lanka let go its grip on the game this morning, sliding from 176/3 to 238 all out thanks mostly to rank bad batting. A fourth wicket partnership of 107 between Aravinda D'Silva and Mahela Jayawardene appeared to be taking the game away from the touring side, when Mahela -- 'Baby Jaya', as he is known in Sri Lanka -- fell trying to force Warne on the onside.

That triggered the slide, with the remaining Lankan batsmen playing a series of shots that would have been more appropriate in the last over of a 50-over game -- apparently, the team is yet in ODI mould and yet to adjust to the needs of Test match cricket. With time on their hands, Lanka needed to increase its lead as much as possible in order to put the depleted Aussies on the back foot. In this, they failed.

Besides Jayawardene, who compiled a brisk 46 off 70 deliveries, the standout performance came from Aravinda D'Silva. Coming in at 2 drop, the veteran anchored the innings witha fine 78 off 146 balls -- a patient, Test match-type vigil wherein he mixed dogged defence with clinical hitting when the bowlers erred in line and length, as attested to by the 13 fours that studded his knock.

For Australia, only four bowlers were seen in operation. And barring the early breakthrough by McGrath, it was the off spin of Colin Miller and the leg spin of Shane Warne that clicked, the former returning career best figures of 4/62 while Warne kept chipping in with wickets to return 5/52 off 16 overs.

At the time of writing this report, Australia, making heavy weather of some very good swing bowling by Chaminda Vaas and Nuwan Zoysa, were on 10/0 at the end of 6 overs.