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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The thought police are everywhere..............

Well, they did better than the much vaunted pairing lower down the order:That said... Jaques was exposed pretty badly in the opening overs: prodding nervously... then playing and missing: by the 3rd over cricinfo were saying "Zaheer has really got into Jaques's mind right now - the batsman prodded a nothing shot away from his body with little foot movement". He got off the mark with a leading edge and his composure in the 8th over was exemplary: Despite the conditions, Jaques was playing a cut shot in the 7th over and a pull (that didn't connect) in the 9th: madness. His discipline didn't improve in a hurry, either: Hayden was just plain lucky: first boundary off a thick edge... then a thick edge through the recently vacated third slip... then got away with a mistimed, lofted flick of a pull over midwicket that (sadly) reaches the rope even though it wasn't timed. Wasn't much better when Harbhajan started:At the end of the 16th over cricinfo noted "If you're just logging on now, the scoreline flatters Australia a touch; there have been plenty of play-and-misses, but latterly the pair are bringing things together"

Now there's no saying Vaughan and Cook would have been exemplary in their place... but I would at least expect greater discipline and more effort to play straight.

Hayden is not the prettiest of batsmen to be sure, but at the end of the day, runs on the board are what matter and the big Queenslander has got plenty of them to put forth his case. How many times has David Gower made the most elegant of extra-cover drives only to put the ball right down the fielder's throat? IMO, DG needlessly threw away his wicket more often in his career than any other leading Test batsman in history.

And more single figure scores too .

At the end of the day that is whats its about. Steve Waugh was another who never looked good scoring runs but he scored plenty and nearly always when it mattered.

Anyway, we wont know what a good score is until India have batted.

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Mark.

You have to give credit to Hayden and Jaques for getting through that first session unscathed.I watched the first 90 minutes and the ball was doing a lot and both of them had to fight to stay there but came through it and recorded a high class century opening stand.

Well done to India for reigning them back later in the day,this could be an excellent test match,roll on 11.30pm.

Funny selection considering the MCG is usualy a 3 paceman 1 spinner wicket that often gets debated about playing 4 quicks, which the West Indies did quite succesfully their in the late 70's early 80's.

350 is a good score for Melbourne, I think par at the MCG is probably about 300. And it is generally a ground where batting gets worse rather than better.

Well how lucky can you get - Jaques scored 66 of 108 deliveries, and Hayden 124 of 183 deliveries.

Sounds like proper cricket to me, but what happened to the middle order?, and I am with the Tait camp, he offers what India are not used to - a blunder in selecting methinks.

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Ern

Dravid, having scrtached around, is dismissed right on lunch. Already you feel the game could be decided in this next session with Sachin carying the hopes of his nation yet again.

Dravid really didn't look himself and was given two lives before his departure. Oz on top at the moment.

Good morning session for Australia on Day 2 in bright sunshine on a slowish pitch. The fast bowlers have not strayed on leg stump allowing an attacking field to be set forcing the batsmen to leave anything outside off-stump. Lee got the first breakthrough with a slower ball to get Jaffer. Dravid struggled to get a run and his misery ended just before lunch when Stuart Clark got him LBW. The amazing thing about that wicket was that Clark switched to a short run-up to get through his over quickly to enable Brad Hogg to bowl one more over before lunch. Maybe Clark should bowl off a short run-up more often.
Given the slowish pitch and slowish outfield Tony Grieg believes 350 is equivalent to 400. Therefore, he thinks India have a tough job ahead to overhaul 350 on this wicket.