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Thursday 5 November 2015

1st Tests Day 1, AUS V NZ & IND V SA

AUS 389/2 v NZ 

How friendly is too friendly? New Zealand's cricketers were derided by Australia as "the politest","nice guy" team ahead of this match, and on day one the touring bowlers allowed an untried home batting line-up the opportunity to dominate and thus set-up the Gabba Test in the same fashion as so many before them.

So much did they dominate that this was Australia's most fruitful of all opening days at the Gabba, better even than the 2 for 364 run up by Matthew Hayden and Ricky Ponting when invited to bat by Nasser Hussain in 2002. David Warner's stand with his new partner Joe Burns set the scene, before Usman Khawaja glided to his first Test hundred with all the class he had promised on his debut against England five summers ago.

For an Australian team still carrying the scars of being routed for 60 at Trent Bridge earlier in 2015, this was a day that began in a blissfully uneventful manner and grew increasingly dominant. For a New Zealand side harbouring genuine ambitions of winning a series down under for the first time since 1985, it was a shock to the system - and a reminder of how hurtful their abandoned warm-up fixture at Blacktown had been.

Batting first after the captain Steven Smith won the toss, Warner and Burns weathered the new ball spells of Tim Southee and Trent Boult before accelerating to a union of 161 that went a long way towards setting up the match and series for the hosts. Khawaja then capitalised with an innings of fluency right around the ground. Their runs allowed Smith the luxury of walking to the wicket at 2 for 311, and he was soon making merry too.

Warner's 13th Test hundred was his first since he made 101 in Australia's opening match of the year against India in Sydney, and was clearly informed by a few of the lessons he learned during the unsuccessful Ashes campaign in England. While there was still the odd flourish, Warner kept well and truly in control of his instincts and emotions, barely playing and missing until he made one failed swish at a Mark Craig delivery on 99. Ultimately he would face 200 balls for the first time in Tests, a credit to his powers of concentration.

Burns' Brisbane experience served him well. He showed tremendous patience to leave the ball well but also play the line when balls moved, not chancing an edge by trying to adjust too much. Burns waited until his 20th delivery to get off zero with a sturdy square drive, and later pushed his score along by showing fleetness of foot against the spin of Craig. He looked increasingly secure until dropping his guard briefly to follow a Southee delivery tailing away and paid for the error with his wicket.

That delivery aside, the visitors were unable to keep the Kookaburra ball swerving as consistently as they had hoped, and only a handful of deliveries beat the bat. Southee and Boult were a tad short in the early overs before Warner and Burns had set themselves, a common failing of pacemen visiting the Gabba. The support bowlers Doug Bracewell and Craig showed very little ability to control the scoreboard, their days summed up when Bracewell took a heavy fall on the hard Gabba turf when in delivery stride first ball after tea.

Warner's innings carried on from the composed visage he took on in the dead fifth Test of the Ashes series at The Oval, when he excelled in his final opening stand with the now retired Chris Rogers. He waited until the eighth over of the morning for his first boundary, but rotated strike cleverly to ensure the New Zealand bowlers had to keep changing their lines.

Later in the session he opened his shoulders, firing one straight driven six off Bracewell. Growing New Zealand anxiety about their lack of inroads was betrayed by an lbw referral against Warner for a ball that was pitching clearly outside leg stump.

Boult and Southee found a modicum of swing when play resumed, but neither was able to land the ball consistently enough to pose problems. Burns and Warner grew increasingly confident, the former nailing one hook shot to a prancing Southee short ball that might easily have resulted in a top edge. The stand of 161 was the best by a new Australian opening combination since Bill Lawry and Ian Redpath nearly 50 years ago, and it was a surprise when Burns snicked a Southee ball delivered from wide on the crease.

McCullum brought Boult straight back into the bowling attack to try to defeat Khawaja, but the left-armer's motley assortment of short and straight deliveries did not trouble the new batsman. Nor did a selection of balls dragged down by Craig pose Khawaja any problems. Within a few overs Warner and Khawaja were rolling along as though Burns' wicket had been of little consequence, and this most inventive of New Zealand sides were starting to look short of ideas.

Few could be found in the evening session, and it was more fatigue than anything else that did for Warner. A tired-looking edge off the bowling of Jimmy Neesham was wonderfully caught by Ross Taylor, but that only served to bring Smith to the crease. In the run up to stumps he and Khawaja motored along against old ball and new, the latter leaping into the air upon reaching his century when pulling another short ball from Boult. For Khawaja and Australia's selectors, this was the stuff of dreams.



IND 201 V SA 28/2

Some balls turned. Others didn't. The batsmen were uncertain. And 12 wickets fell on the day, nine of them to spin, as the Test season in India began with a distinctly subcontinental flavor. Some like M Vijay felt untroubled at the crease. Others didn't last long enough to figure things out. South Africa would feel aggrieved that Faf du Plessis and Stiaan van Zyl fell in the latter pile after they bowled India out for 201.

At 28 for 2 after the first day's play and having gone in a batsman short - JP Duminy has not recovered from his hand injury - South Africa will need a big first session tomorrow, and have two grand players of spin in Hashim Amla and AB de Villiers to pin their hopes on.

But if part-time spinner Dean Elgar could swindle four wickets in eight overs, India's frontliners should be chomping at the bit. R Ashwin already has a wicket. Ravindra Jadeja, on his Test return, played his second-longest innings and struck with his second ball and Amit Mishra ripped a couple of legbreaks that could easily have taken Amla's edge or his off stump.

"Never seen so many cracks in Chandigarh ever," said Sunil Gavaskar. "If you're a spinner, what more do you want," said Anil Kumble. It was dry and consensus was it had been rolled less than usual. Safe to say that the pre-series demand for turning tracks has been met.

The agenda was to bat first and bat big. Virat Kohli won the toss on his 27th birthday and his first Test as captain at home to give his team the opportunity to do so. Only the voodoo that part-time spinners do hit India hard as Elgar, better known to be an opening batsman, one-upped two key players. Cheteshwar Pujara, who could have built India's innings around him, was trapped lbw with a straight ball and Ajinkya Rahane, who has shown he can resurrect top-order wobbles, nicked the one that turned sharply.

That Elgar has the knack to shock opposition line-ups is not entirely a surprise. His first Test wicket was Misbah-ul-Haq, when he was cruising towards a century in Dubai in 2013. He bested Steven Smith as well, at a time when South Africa were at their wits end after a 184-run partnership in Cape Town in 2014.

They weren't facing as dire a situation today, but Amla trusted his experiment so much that the frontline spinner Imran Tahir had to wait till the 43rd over to bowl and Elgar was celebrating like King Kong - banging on his chest with each India batsman he swatted away. At one point he was on a hat-trick when Wriddhiman Saha nicked a beautifully flighted delivery to first slip to reenact Rahane's dismissal. The trick was simple - he bowled at an enticingly slow pace to pull errant drives and the batsmen either nicked off or the gap between bat and pad was exploited.

India owed a good portion of their runs to a fifty from Vijay, who looked as in control as the rest looked flustered. The difference perhaps came as a result of the batting styles: Vijay played late and delicately, the others tended to jab and push to feel bat on ball. He was exquisite on the drive and the flick because he picked the line and length early and then committed to a stroke. The conviction behind them was apparent, the power never ever so. He breezed to 75 runs, with 12 fours, in only 136 balls. Then there was Jadeja, returning to the side after six back-to-back five-wicket hauls in the Ranji Trophy, and showing an improved tenacity to bat as well. But otherwise there wasn't much.

Shikhar Dhawan, backed by the team management to deliver, retained his place as opener but couldn't muster any fight. He had knocked back three balls and flashed at the fourth wide outside off stump to bag a duck and give Vernon Philander and South Africa the early strike they needed.

Topping up on that seemed unlikely when Pujara joined Vijay and put up a sturdy 63 runs for the second wicket. They left the ball watchfully, ran well between the wickets and ushered the bad balls to the boundary as good Test batsmen should.

Good Test bowlers make that difficult and Steyn did persuade Vijay, who was yet to score, to feel outside his off stump. But the edge went too quickly for Harmer at gully. Then there are bowlers like Elgar, who rock up at the right time and deliver the right ball. It was the orthodox left-arm spinner's delivery but it just did not turn as Pujara was clearly expecting and was trapped leg-before, another of those dismissals where he missed a straight ball.

Kohli fell to his own intent. He plays with hard hands. He likes coming at the ball. He wants to force it onto his bat and one of those times coincided with a Kagiso Rabada delivery that came quite a bit slower off the track. The leading edge was taken and Elgar, again, pouched a catch diving forward at short cover. That South Africa have made all these inroads without Morne Morkel, who has not sufficiently recovered from his foot injury, indicates the depth of their resources and the disciplines they have maintained. But they, like India, went in with five bowlers and six batsmen and will need every one of them to step up tomorrow.

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