Australia vs India 1st Test: First Day Condition

Much-anticipated first test of Australia vs India test series started today. Winning toss in the morning, Australian captain Ricky Ponting elected to bat first. However, Australian batsmen failed to live up to the expectation despite a solid start from the opening pair. At the end of the day, Australia put on 337 runs on the scoreboard loosing 9 wickets. Indian captain Anil Kumble took five wickets leading India to have a successful first day at Melbourne Cricket Ground.

Australian openers, Phil Jaques and Mathew Hayden brought an impressive start for the host side putting on 135 runs in their opening partnership. Phil Jaques fell at 66 being stumped off Kumble. However, Mathew Hayden went on to make another outstanding century against India. Facing 183 balls, the opener played a superb innings of 124 with nine spectacular boundaries. To be honest, that is all the success of Australian batsmen in the first day. Australian middle order looked volatile today as their third highest individual score 35 came from Andrew Symonds. Michael Clarke scored 20 in his 60-ball innings before falling to Zaheer Khan. Captain Ricky Ponting and Michael Hussey scored 4 and 2 respectively bringing huge disappointment among the Aussie fans. Wicketkeeper Adam Gilchrist and Brad Hogg tried to build the Australian innings but failed to show enough resistance against Indian bowlers as they fell at 23 and 17 respectively.

Among the Indian bowlers, Anil Kumble was most successful taking five Auatralian wickets. Pacer Zaheer khan was also impressive with 3 wickets. Rudra Pratap Singh took the other wicket today. Harbhajan Singh could not bring any success for India though he was economical in his 20 overs. Now, let us see if India can take out the last Australian wicket early in the morning tomorrow.