Comment

It promised to be an intriguing, closely contested series, and the first day of the Boxing Day Test at the Melbourne Cricket Ground held true to that promise with a seesaw battle between bat and ball. This is the sort of Test cricket that two talented, evenly matched sides playing on a sporting wicket can produce, and the almost full house at the MCG and the legions of fans of these two sides following the game around the world got a treat.

Michael Clarke had a tough decision to make first up after winning the toss. There was plenty of grass rolled into the wicket and moisture too from overnight rain. In last year's Boxing Day Test, Andrew Strauss of England had put the Aussies in and bowled them out for 98. But Clarke opted to bat, probably reckoning the pitch looked more straw-coloured than green this time around, and might actually speed up and offer more bounce later in the Test once the sun bakes it out. We'll see today when the Indians bat if he read it right.

The Aussie openers, especially David Warner, played a few streaky shots and missed a few outside the off-stump. But with Zaheer Khan bowling at a friendly 130 kph, obviously mindful of the fiasco in England earlier this year when he pulled a muscle in his first spell, Clarke's decision to bat first began to look good. The extra pace of newcomer Umesh Yadav, however, showed how lively the pitch could be. He quickly had two wickets in consecutive overs and then rattled the visor of Ricky Ponting's helmet with a snorter at 145 kph.

Dhoni's reluctance to give any of the pacers an extended spell is understandable, given the spate of injuries we've had, but still it was strange to see Yadav being pulled out of the attack just before the lunch break when Ponting was most vulnerable.

Worse, a long lunch break due to a drizzle seemed to give the devil ample time to mess around in Dhoni's head, because the post-lunch session saw a bizarre game plan. On a wicket where there was ample movement off the good length spot for a ball that was only 25 overs old, the Indians came out with a short-pitch barrage against Ponting. Despite being two wickets down with an ageing, struggling former skipper at the crease, the Aussies scored at over six runs an over in the hour after lunch.Ponting did get out to pull shots a few times earlier this season against the

South Africans and Kiwis, but here on a grassy pitch that was relatively slow, this line of attack only helped him regain some confidence and form with a half century. Eventually, after the drinks break, when Umesh reverted to his normal length, he edged one to third slip as he lunged forward to an away-going delivery - a fairly standard mode of dismissal for Ponting.

In fact, throughout the day, both Umesh and Ishant were trying too many variations in length and line, whereas they would probably have had more success if they had been bull-headed and stuck to a good length spot on off-stump. Despite these give-aways, however, an inspired spell of bowling by Zaheer Khan with the old ball, who cranked up his pace to 135 kph when he saw a bit of reverse swing, again had the Aussies on the mat at 214/6. Clarke edged one that jagged back into the stumps, and Mike Hussey got one early on that rose sharply and deviated. Zaheer should also have had Haddin with a ball that pitched online, straightened, and hit him on the back pad. Replays showed it would probably have hit the centre of middle stump, but South African umpire Marias Erasmus perhaps did not see how the ball came into the batsman off the seam.

Given this reprieve, it's characteristically one-sided of the Aussie media to be shouting that the use of DRS would have saved Hussey, because Erasmus ruled him caught behind when the ball probably went off his upper arm and not his gloves. But the way Hussey threw his gloves at the rising ball to fend it off, and the accompanying noise, did make him look palpably out at first sight - so the umpire can't be faulted.

The one who should be faulted is skipper Dhoni who had an in-out field to Haddin, with a few fielders close in and the others in deep positions. With Australia tottering at 214 for 6, Haddin was content to pick off the easy singles on offer and Peter Siddle held up the other end gamely. Cutting off the singles would have put more pressure on the Aussies, but a strangely defensive Dhoni was more worried about conceding boundaries.

At the end of the day, the match seems evenly poised, with many more twists and turns to come. This is Test cricket at its best, and well worth waking up for at 5 am for fans in India.