It’s raining runs on Waugh’s parade

Who was more relieved, Indian spectators or him, it is hard to say. For weeks now, it has been said, not without distress, ‘‘this will be his day, this will be his day’’ like some desperate mantra, and then suddenly his day, or part of it, had arrived. For weeks the phrase ‘‘best batsman in the world’’ was still spoken defiantly, yet now the abashed look that followed has slightly faded. What effect one man still has on a nation is astonishing. What effect Tendulkar will have on this match is to be seen.

With Dravid (38), exquisite for a while before falling to a delivery of some beauty, he put on 66 runs, with VVS Laxman (29 not out) he added 90. There were straight drives of minimal effort and maximum effect, flicks that danced to the mid-wicket fence, but the rust was evident too, the scratchiness against MacGill, the occasional absence of timing. It was greatness incomplete, but it was captivating nevertheless to watch a batsman struggle to find his lost genius.

Australian coach John Buchanan said Tendulkar would know his runs have been accumulated not in the best fashion. It was not wholly untrue, but then, as a teammate said, this was a ‘‘fighting knock’’, an innings more of application than aesthetics by a man aching to hand his team a contribution.

With Dravid gone, with India 3-194, and too many overs left, collapse would have ended the match but life has been gently breathed into it. Laxman came ahead of Saurav Ganguly and this was clever thinking, for there was no hurry, hours had to be killed, and the altered Hyderabadi is better suited to batting time than his quick-scoring, fluid Bengali teammate.

Laxman’s 29 came in 67 balls, 105 minutes, Tendulkar’s 73 in 156 balls, 202 minutes, together designing a partnership that was painstaking, cautious, compelling, but not yet decisive. That must come on Saturday, for anything less than 450 could haunt them.

The last session brought 135 runs, vital since the second session brought only 53. The first was worth 98, without a wicket lost, and of course it was those fellows again, Aakash Chopra (45) and Virender Sehwag (72), the parson and the predator, who eventually stayed together for 123 runs.

Sehwag is not an opener, Chopra is barely a Test cricketer (two Tests before this tour), and as a cricketing couple they are in the initial stages of courtship. They have hardly batted together, yet this tour their opening partnership average is 64. On the last tour here in 1999-2000, the openers put on 55 runs in total in six innings. If anything, they are looking more like Hayden-Langer than Hayden-Langer themselves, whose average this tour is 25.

As a tongue-in-cheek Dravid, who is the third man in, complimented their contribution to India: ‘‘I’m learning a new skill — of how to spend long hours in the dressing room waiting to bat’’.

Both began studiously, blessed repeatedly by fortune as they negotiated some sharp new ball bowling, ‘‘a yard to two faster’’ than Chopra is used to. He was caught off a Lee no-ball, then dropped by Katich off the next ball, and their occasional too-risky singles suggested normally telepathic runners were operating on different wavelengths.

Sehwag swished and swatted, square-cutting a ball for six one ball then hitting only thin air the next. Once again he reminded us that while his hands and eyes stay locked in a wondrous marriage, his feet are usually not invited to this wedding. But it certainly works for him, and India.

Chopra seems to have a fatal attraction for the 40s, for he has never reached 50 even once in this series. But although he says his parents every day, for the past 15 years, visit a temple, a bigger score does not need to be prayed for. A confident batsman believes it is coming anyway. ‘‘If I can bat for three hours, I know I’m good enough to be there for six.’’

To the batsmen’s credit all three were dismissed not through shots of foolhardiness but creative deliveries. Australia bowled with heart and skill and were met with the same. It was a tough, grinding contest, and worthy of day one of a final Test.

Buchanan would compliment John Wright and Ganguly and the changes they have wrought over the last 18 months or so, he would say that India’s attitude was different, that there is a ‘‘certain aggressiveness’’ to them, that they are ‘‘not prepared to lie down’’. Let it also be said: neither is Australia.