Chennai: The second day of first Test saw fabulous half-centuries from Master Blaster Sachin Tendulkar and young Virat Kohli who steered India to safety with a score of 182 for three wickets after India went off to a disastrous start, losing their openers Virender Sehwag and Murali Vijay cheaply.
M.A. Chidambram stadium has always been a happy hunting ground for Tendulkar and on Saturday it was no different. Sachin looked in brilliant touch from the very moment he came to the crease and started off with a flurry of boundaries to push Aussie pace bowlers on back-foot.
For Australia, it was James Pattinson who came up with a brilliant opening spell in the second session of the day and dismissed the fragile opening pair within first six overs. But India is all-set to fight back on the third day of the First Test with their prime batsmen looking in a brilliant touch. Sachin ended the day with 71 runs, which included six boundaries.
Third session of the day started off well for India, but very soon bowling change made by Michael Clarke in the form of Pattinson worked out really well when he bowled out Pujara who was looking in good touch. Pujara scored 44 runs before he was sent back to pavilion. Pujara and Tendulkar added 93 runs for the third wicket partnership. But after that, Australians pace attack didn’t manage to trouble Sachin and Virat for the rest of the day. Virat too looked in brilliant touch from the very first ball and carried on to get a half-century with the seven smashing boundaries. Kohli along with Tendulkar added 83 runs for the fourth wicket.
Earlier in the second session of the day two, it was James Pattinson who bowled an exceptional spell and bowled out the Indian opening pair at the score of 12 runs. Virender Sehwag and Murli Vijay got out for two and ten runs respectively. And then it was Sachin who came to the centre and steadied the ship that was looking in all sorts of trouble. He started on a very positive note and started off with boundaries and his confident strokeplay helped Pujara too to get into the groove and the Saurashtra batsman too started dealing in boundaries. The Duo maintained the run rate close to four runs per over during the second session and kept bowlers under all sorts of pressure. Both the batsmen took the team to a score of 85 for the loss of two wickets till the tea time.
Earlier in the day, Michael Clarke and Peter Siddle came out to bat for the first session of the second day and started the proceedings quite well. They were looking very calm and were rotating the strikes really well which frustrated Indian fielders as well as bowler.
But it was Ravindra Jadeja who broke the partnership for eighth wicket by dismissing Michael Clarke and later it was Harbhajan who picked up his first wicket of the match by trapping Siddle in front of the wicket. Michael Clarke scored brilliant 130 runs before getting dismissed.
Ravichandran Ashwin, who was the star on day one of the Test, wrapped up the Australian innings with his seventh wicket of the match. He ended up with his career best of 7 for 103 after the first innings.