What makes Australian batting formidable

New Delhi: The Australian batting is a lesson in run construction. Bangalore was just one example of it. A one stage, it did look that Australia will be lucky to get past 250. With Ponting and Hussey not in the team and four wickets down for less than 100, what else could have been the assessment?

But thanks to Clarke-Haddin partnership, things changed and how! It was a tremendous partnership of 144 runs, which is also going to be an indication of how the Australians are going to conduct themselves in the series in case of early loss of wickets.

Safety first was the buzzword as there were a good number of 72 dot balls and off the 81 scoring shots during the partnership, as many as 57 singles were taken during this period.

In all, the 144 runs of the partnerships came off 153 balls which finally turned out to be a remarkable strike-rate of 94 considering the situation.

What made the task of the Indian bowlers most difficult was that expect point region, runs were scored off virtually every area. The maximum runs scored from one particular area was covers, which accounted for 18 per cent of the runs made by the batsmen.

The partnership between Clarke and Haddin has made one thing very clear. Against this team, India can never afford to be wayward at any stage of the innings. The fact that as many as 23 runs were scored of square-leg showed the problem with the line in the middle overs, which the visitors made full use of.

Rain saved the day for India as after Sachin’s wicket, the Australians were odds on favourite to win the tie. But unless there is a disciplined approach in the middle overs, life might get little difficult for the Indian side in this series.

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