India's patience won them this shoot-out

A sigh of relief rose from the stands in the Sector 16 Stadium once Mahendra Singh Dhoni won the toss on Monday morning. Finally India could bat first and try and put Australia on the difficult end of a 300-plus run-chase. An hour later, though, those hopes were fading as Brett Lee and his fellow fast bowlers put on a spell that made Sachin Tendulkar look thoroughly inept at the crease and the scoring rate resemble the first hour of a Test match.

In truth, that 91-run opening stand between Tendulkar and Sourav Ganguly, though slow and unattractive, was the most important factor for India's eventual victory. It saw off the threat posed by the new ball under difficult conditions and allowed the middle order to bat aggressively and score 179 off the last 25 overs, taking India to 291. In fact, today was the seventh time in 87 ODIs that India managed to reach 150 against Australia without losing a second wicket.

Later, Dhoni - Man of the Match for his unbeaten 50 off 35 balls - acknowledged the importance of the opening stand. "The credit goes to Sachin and Sourav," he said. "We were pretty slow but the Australians bowled well in suitable conditions. I think we scored 291 only because of that start. Initially we thought we wouldn't get 250 the way we were batting and the way the ball was moving."

The pitch certainly did plenty in the morning. There was considerable seam movement, the bounce was uneven and, most importantly, the Australian bowlers were accurate - apart from an extraordinary number of wides - and were able to swing the ball at high speeds close to (and on occasion exceeding) 150 kmph.

Why bat first on such a pitch? Dhoni said that it a chance they "had to take" especially because they "weren't chasing well". India's run-chases in the previous three games had suffered because the first wicket had fallen at 1, 11 and 10. Today they didn't have a target of 300 to chase and Tendulkar and Ganguly could afford to play themselves in.

It was hard work, though, and Tendulkar perhaps made it look even harder than it was. He was in trouble first ball, when Nathan Bracken hit him on the pads, but his major struggle was against Lee, who kept him pinned at one end. Lee repeatedly beat Tendulkar on the drive with fast outswingers outside the off stump. He tested Tendulkar with the ball that nipped back as well and also used the bouncer as a surprise delivery. On another day one of those outswingers would have taken an edge, or the umpire would have upheld Lee's close caught behind and lbw appeals but today Tendulkar managed to survive. He also faced another uncertain moment when Mitchell Johnson got a ball to rise sharply and hit the shoulder of the bat only to fall safely on the off side.

Ganguly, meanwhile, managed to keep scoring at a steady pace; he had the relative comfort of facing Bracken and Johnson, who gave him the occasional ball on the pads or the width outside off to put away to the boundary.

After ten overs, India had scraped through to 34 for no loss, Ganguly on 21 off 31 balls and Tendulkar on 4 off 29. But the worst was over - and, most importantly, all ten wickets were intact. The pressure eased after Lee was taken out of the attack and India scored 34 runs off the second Powerplay to steadily increase the scoring rate. Stealth was still the key for India because losing a wicket at that stage would have undone the hard work of the first ten overs. Tendulkar and Ganguly used all their experience to play patiently, where a younger batsman might have tried to counter the difficult conditions by hitting his way out of trouble.

The bowler-friendly conditions disappeared, however, once India took the field. The pitch got slower and Dhoni said that "it didn't really assist the fast bowlers like it did in the first innings". It didn't help matters that RP Singh and Zaheer Khan kept pitching on the shorter side and were severely punished by the Australian top-order, Matthew Hayden in particular.

The Australians raced to 75 for 1 in ten overs with a flurry of boundaries and they were on course to make short work of India's hard-earned 291. The match looked like ending in 40 overs.

"We identified early in the game that batting against the new ball was the best time to score quickly," said Ponting. "It looked like the wicket had become more consistent in the second innings with the new ball than the first innings. A few stayed down, a few bounced earlier today and there was some seam movement. When there's a flat wicket, a fast outfield and a new ball you really have to make the most of it."

The Australians did, India did not. While India's openers had to sweat just to survive, their Australian counterparts came out shooting from the hip. Both approaches were successful, but the Indian middle order built on their start while Australia's stumbled under pressure at the death.