Tasmania, Coxed by Jamie, send Indian fortunes down the Hill

Not only did the Indians fail to take a wicket, they couldn’t make any impression on the two, who are one of the most prolific opening pairs in Australian domestic cricket and today, they shared an unbroken opening wicket stand of 166 runs.

Skipper Cox has had a successful summer with Somerset in the English county championship and here, he cut and drove fluently to underlinehis batting abilities. His partner, left-handed Hill, too exhibited a good range of strokes, with the drive on the off side being his most potent weapon.

Except in the opening overs, when Debashis Mohanty moved to ball both ways, there was nothing of note which the Indian attack could achieve. T Kumaran was average and Venkatesh Prasad did not exert himself much. Harbhajan Singh, who has had limited opportunities so far, did not find the track helpful for his bag of tricks, though he varied his flight quite a bit.

The only satisfying part of the day for the Indians was that their tail managed to score some runs. The last wicket pair of Mohanty and V Prasad shared an unbeaten partnership of 47 runs. This aspect apart, it was not a day which the Indians would love to remember. As it is they are unhappy with the way the tour itinerary has been scheduled.

And there is some justification for their unhappiness as playing this four-day game on a slow surface is hardly going to help the team in its preparationfor the second Test. Unlike here, the wicket at Melbourne is going to be fast and bouncy and on top of it, after this match gets over, there is a five-day gap before the start of the Melbourne Test.

Indian coach Kapil Dev expressed his displeasure at the way the whole thing has been scheduled: “Had there been proper planning, we could have played one more practice match. Now, I am not sure what we will do for five days after this match gets over.”

Scoreboard
India (1st innings): VVS Laxman c Atkinson b Wright 0, S Ramesh c Marsh b Downton 34, R Dravid c Atkinson b Wright 107, H Kanitkar lbw Kremerskothen 58, V Bhardawaj run out 14, S Ganguly c Atkinson b Downton 5, N Mongia c Kremerskothen b Downton 5, T Kumaran b Downton 15, V Prasad not out 17, Harbhajan Singh b Downton 15, D Mohanty not out 22;
Extras (b2, lb10, nb11, w1) 24.
Total (declared for 9 wickets) 316.
Fall of wickets: 1-5, 2-55, 3-169, 4-227, 5-233, 6-235, 7-250, 8-253, 9-269.
Bowling: DWright 27-3-77-2, A Downton 30-10-90-5, C Miller 32-14-43-0, S Young 13-5-23-0, S Kremerskothen 17-2-52-1, D Marsh 10-3-19-0.Tasmania: J Cox batting 88, D Hill batting 66;
Extras (lb4,nb7) 11.
Total (for no loss) 166.
Bowling: V Prasad 12-2-30-0, D Mohanty 13-1-49-0, S Ganguly 6-0-15-0, T Kumaran 8-3-26-0, Harbhajan Singh 14-4-34-0, V Bharadwaj 5-1-8-0.