Keeping it straight

There was a stark contrast between the shot selection of Damien Martyn as opposed to Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid. This can partly be attributed to the sea of difference between the bowling of the two sides - one woefully profligate and the other manfully disciplined. The slowness of the pitch as the match wore on was also one of the factors, but the contrast was definitely glaring.

Damien Martyn scored 31% of his runs (31 off 100) in the V between long-on and long-off, while Tendulkar and Dravid hardly drove down the ground with the full face of the bat. Tendulkar scored only 14.7% of his runs (10 off 68) in this region while the corresponding figure for Dravid was 13.6% (8 off 59). The figures become even more baffling when one considers that the Australian seamers hardly pitched it short and stuck to a straight line throughout their spells. Tendulkar exhibited some artistic touch with some delectable glides and swipes, but this ultimately led to his dismissal.

Zaheer Khan's early spell reminded one of the World Cup final, when he was dismantled by a rampaging unit. He bowled 45 balls out which of 15 drifted down leg side. On a pitch that demanded a stump-to-stump spell he should learn a few lessons from young Nathan Bracken, whose swing and control left most batsmen clueless. In a spell of 4 for 29 Bracken bowled only 3 balls on the middle and leg stump and of his 61 balls, 44 zeroed in outside the off stump. His length too was immaculate and 52 out of his 61 balls were pitched on a good length, 7 were pitched up and only 1 was short - a statistic that would have made Glenn Mcgrath proud.