Floating Mishra stings Aussies

Mishra’s five-wicket haul left Australia with a mountain to climb in the second Test. It must surely have left Kumble with a mild headache as well. At stumps on Day Three, the hosts were 100 without loss in their second dig, 301 ahead and looking intent on heading into the Diwali vacation with a 1-0 lead.

Visitors startled

The first delivery of Mishra’s first proper spell of the day (he had completed his over from Saturday before Zaheer Khan and Ishant Sharma took over in the morning) started outside off, floated in towards Brad Haddin, pitched on middle-and-leg and fizzed across his startled blade.

A few overs later, Cameron White was in shock as one pitched in around the same area and spun in to hit leg-stump.

After Harbhajan Singh broke an irritating eighth-wicket partnership, Mishra got Watson leg-before with one that pitched on leg and straightened just enough before finishing things off with by having last-man Shaun Tait stumped.

As the team walked off, he suddenly ran back to the middle — to pick up his hat from Rudi Koertzen and the ball from Asad Rauf. His team mates, barring Sehwag and Gambhir who had charged in to get padded up, waited at the boundary line, clapping him into the dressing room.

Genuine problem

Under normal circumstances, Kumble, who is sitting this Test out with an injured shoulder, would have walked back into the XI irrespective of Mishra’s heroics. Even with runs under their belt, Yuvraj Singh and Mohammad Kaif repeatedly made way for middle-order stalwarts returning from injury-induced exiles. There’s no reason why Kumble should be treated any differently.

Unfortunately, circumstances aren’t close to normal as far as the skipper’s concerned. Deliveries that once bounced and spat at nervous bats have, of late, been thudding into their meaty middles. In the last four Tests he has played, he’s picked up eight wickets at an unflattering average of 70. In Bangalore, on a pitch that had absolutely nothing in it for him, he bowled 51 luckless overs — four catches were dropped off his bowling, and on two occasions he himself was the culprit.

This is not writing him off— this generation of legends has handed out enough lessons in the last two years on the perils of doing that — but his form, for a little longer than just temporarily, seems to have deserted him.

Already Ian Chappell has said Mishra should be picked over Kumble, and Ravi Shastri that whatever the situation, Mishra has to play. Over the next 10 days, the voices raising the question will not be as reasonable or polite.

Elder statesman

As Sehwag and Gambhir were tearing Ponting’s defensive field plan to shreds in the final hour of play, the giant screen showed the dressing room balcony where Kumble sat two chairs behind Mishra. He leaned over and said something to the day’s hero, and both broke into big smiles.

This man has dealt with everything thrown at him — and he’s copped unreasonable amount of flak for someone with 953 international wickets — with remarkable dignity. It’s unlikely, and a touch unreasonable, to expect the captain (and he was, let’s not forget, everyone’s champion just three series ago in Australia) to sit himself out.

Whatever the decision taken — asking Mishra to wait or Kumble coming in for a batsman — we can be pretty sure he’ll handle it better than most others. For now, it’s enough too know that whenever he decides to wind up, there’s a nice, loopy and extremely different replacement that looks ready to start filling that hole.