Test 3 : Day 1, Who's gonna win this one Options

[p1j]

>India did ok today ! Not a bad performance !

>Martyn was sheer class as always, what a player. However, was dissapointed >with the captaincy, during the last session, there was a clutter of wickets, and >the field was too defensive for my liking. Another slip and gully, with Kumble and >Karthik bowling from both ends, with perhaps another close cathcer in.

Overall a fantastic day of cricket with both teams worked hard to reach where it ended on day one.. I think none of the team is disappointed with the score of day one, though Aussies have a upper hand as of now.. But if we look at the sessions, India won two sessions (morning and post tea), but Aussies dominance in Post lunch session took the game slightly away from India.

Our bowlers bowled their heart out yet there was not much of support from the fielders (or the luck factor, specially none of the half chances could be converted and dropped as many as 4 simple chances).. still I feel sorry fro Dravid as he is leading one of the weakest bowling attacks of recent times.. Had Pathan (what a pitch for him) and Harbhajan available to him, it would be a different story for sure.. I think we are going to miss Pathan and Harbhajan much much more than Ganguly and Yuvraj...India can comeback if they can get the remaining three before Aussies reach 400 considering the fact that its a very good batting pitch as the bounce is consistent.

Much is being said about the pitch, but I found it as one of the finest pitches in India and it is heard that Ganguly didn't played as he wasn't happy with the pitch..
With the best batting line up of the world, should he be really concerned, what kind of Pitch he is playing on... His statement against the Pitch was a statement of cowardice.. and it would definately heart breaker and discouraging for our batsmans and more importantly our fast bowlers.. remember, we had been crying for long that we are unable to produce good fast bowlers as we dont have good fast pitches for them.. and when we come up with a good pitch, the captain giving such a statement is a representation of his own weakness, which has been forced upon the team..

Patel had a mixed bag behind the wickets and his misses are proving to be far costlier than his takes.. He should be immediately replaced, but should be sent for a specialized training for a long term prospect)..

As for Dravid's captaincy is concerned, I think he overrated the pitch (in terms of reading the bounce), and kept the slips a bit too far (as we saw dozens of half chances could not be converted, as the ball was not carrying too far in initial sessions).. but overall the day belonged to Damien Martyn.. What a classy player he is... He paced his innings brilliantly and his dominance over Agarkar and Kumble was just too good..

All eyes on tomorrow... on clarke, mcgrath, chopra and ofcourse sachin!

Pavan Jha