Report of Day 2 Test 1 - India Vs. Australia

The second day saw a strong Indian reply to the first innings Australian score of 333 all out. Earlier, the Indian bowlers cleaned up the Aussie tail reasonably quickly. Zaheer Khan picked up four wickets. The previous day's unbeaten pair of Peter Siddle and Brad Haddin was dismissed by Zaheer Khan for 41 and 27 respectively. The hosts were all out for 333 in 110 overs.
The Delhi players - Gautam Gautam Gambhir and Virender Sehwag opened the Indian innings. Gambhir however could not last long and was sent back by Hilfenhaus only for 3. The score was 22 then. However, then it was time to build back the Indian innings. Rahul Dravid was the best bet for the same.

He batted sensibly along with Virender Sehwag and consolidated. They did not lose wickets but also saw to it that the runs kept flowing. They put on 75 runs for the second wicket. Sehwag reached his half-century in style - as usual with a risky stroke off 59 balls. That included five boundaries. However, the young Pattinson got the better of Sehwag and sent him back for an individual score of 67.

At 97/2, the Master Blaster made his way into the middle carrying a billion hopes on his shoulder to score that elusive 100th century. Tendulkar began in style and seemed determined to record the day in the history books. There was no stopping him as runs flowed through his bat and the Aussie players could hardly do anything.

A lovely six was brought about by him to show his hunger and urgency for runs. But as it looked the day belonged to Sachin, Peter Siddle bowled him for 73 and the agonizing wait for the magical figure stretched even further. Tendulkar got out to a superb ball from Siddle that deserved nothing less than a wicket.

Ishant Sharma was sent in as a night watchman to see of the remaining balls for the day. Rahul Dravid was not out on 68 and India ended the day on 214/3 - yet 119 shy of the Australian first innings score.