Now i will start by saying that Kumble bowled very well - it probably goes without saying really. I have not seen the guy bowl since 2003, and i forgot how well he can drift the ball and how excellent his variations are, in particular his wrong-un. Well bowled, and for the time being has saved India some grief.

I say grief because Kumble's bowling papered over the cracks of some serious shortcomings in India's game and setup.

For starters, there bowling linup is totally unsuitable for Australian conditions. This is not India or Sri Lanka - you need three top line seamers. As soon as Ganguly had started bowling, it became immediately apparent that India could well be in some trouble. If one of India's seamers suffers an injury or starts bowling badly, they will have no-one to turn to. Bowl Ganguly against a quality Australian linup on their own pitches and he will be murdered. India have got away with it in this first innings, but there is still another to go, and three more tests after that.

Harbijan is a luxury that India cannot afford over a four test series - the wickets are too true. Unless you have the ability to drift the ball, batsman can see the line immediately and hit through it. This is not the place to bowl his style of offspin. They have Kumble, and they have a backup in Tendulker. Those two can do the spinning job down here. They must replace Harbijan for an extra seamer, or they will be found out.

Kumble was tactically poor IMO. Way too defensive, and he seemed to lack confidence in his seamers. There was one period when the seamers were going well, and he has only two slips, yet had three men on the boundary - two of them behind leg. What was his plan? Bounce the Aussie batsmen with 130kmph medium pacers in the hope of a catch - on a wicket where the ball was moving around and nicks to slips looked likely. When Hussey and Ponting had fallen in succession and Australia was under pressure, why did he continue with a deep long off and deep mid wicket and attack allowing the Aussie easy singles , rather than attacking?
I could have listed probably a dozen blunders like this had i had a pen and paper and kept a log. I have never been a fan of bowlers being captains, and this is one of the reasons why.

At the end of the day, honors are even - 350 being a par score in Melbourne in those conditions. The wicket, while not really supplying a lot of carry, can hardly be described as a slow "dead" wicket, and the Aussie bowlers will have a good opportunity to take it up to the Indian batsmen tomorrow. The wicket should also be helpful for Hogg. It is not slow enough for the Indians to stay on the back foot and play him off the wicket, they will need to read him out of the hand and commit on the front foot. If they don't pick his wrong-un out of the hand, he may well pose them some problems.

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