I think Sreesanth is injured. But I agree about Pathan- take away his wickets against Zimbabwe and Bangladesh and his figures are Agarkaresque. He's still got a lot to prove.

The problem with the Indian team in the last few years is that the selectors lose trust and interest in a player if he underperfoms in a few matches. It then gets him onto a slippery slope from which he may never recover. This is particularly true of bowlers in the last decade. Venkat Prasad, Zaheer Khan, Ashish Nehra, Laxmipathy Balaji, the various Singhs etc etc have come, occasionally promised and gone like yesterday's news. I know that injury has something to do with a few players, but I don't think the Indian board is falling over themselves to help players or try to build a talented team. There is going to be a huge hole when the likes of Kumble, Tendulkar, Ganguly and Dravid retire, which will be soon.

Nearly but not quite: I got the batting right... and all the certain bowling right.... but the spot I saw possibly going to Pathan now looks destined for either Ishant Sharma or Harbhajan Singh.

For the match thread see Australia v India, 1st Test, Melbourne

As always, Django is right on the button. The Indian bowling attack got only 9 Oz wickets on this first day of the Test series. He is going to be right about the Indian batting prediction too, because no Indian batsman can cross 100 against "Tate"; Oz have no such bowler in their ranks. As for Tait, he is not playing in this test.

I eat the humble pie.

India have really fought well and Indian bowlers have bowled well beyond expectations/imagination.

And I am glad that the first day was competitive. There was a contest between bat & ball and cricket was at its glorious best.

But it is only the first day of the series and there is still a long way to go..

Let us see how much resistence the last Australian pair of Clark & Johnson put up on day2

India 31/2 at lunch in reply to Australias 343. India batting at about 3 runs an hour at the moment. I haven't seen any footage but are the Aussies doing something amazing with the ball or are the Indians not batting positively?

Going by the first 20 odd overs that the Australians have bowled, it appears that they may not need "Tait" after all, in this test match, at least!!

PS: As for spelling "Tait" as "Tate", my apologies. I had just completed reading Maurice Tate's biography by John Arlott and hence the mix-up. And the current Indian batsmen would have struggled against Maurice Tate as well!!!!

Raul Dravid has a lot to answer for.

One innings down, seven to go for the Indian batsmen - Tait or no "Tate"!! Only a miracle can now stop the Australians from winning the series 4 - Nil.

Wasn't far out i guess.

Seamer i demand an apology.