I still firmly believe Australia will COMFORTABLY win this match. I would not have settled for anything less than 550 as target for the Australians. Tendulkar's dropped catch of Symonds in the first innings is going to be decisive.

The pitch is playing easy, the ball is old (not much swing now) and the Australians are more than motivated. I do not believe Kumble will be that effective on day 4 at WACA. In addition Ponting and Clarke have a point to make, having failed with the bat in the series so far.

Where Rogers has a technical issue I think Jaques has a mental issue. He seems to have a compulsion to deciding late to have a little dabble at short balls outside off-stump, that only ends up as bat dangling at the end of the day.

Congratulations Pathan, with the recent assistance of Wasim Akram he is right back on track and dangerous. And like Glenn McGrath worked out years ago that there are many outside off-stump right handed bat dangler's around for the picking, Pathan has dicovered with accurate bowling and a bit of late movement there are just as many left handed ones out there waiting to be harvested also.

Channel 9 has that graphic that shows the tracking of the balls at the end of each over, balls pitching around the same spot are even showing a great variation in bounce.
I cant see them getting the runs.

From an indian point of view, the best thing is that none of the players yet to bat, barring symonds, seem to be in an ominous form. Kumble is a fighter. Given the history of test cricket and given the quality of bowling india has in this test match, the only way india can lose this test match is by dropping catches that come their way. Cant wait...5 more hours to go..

Lets meet the aussies again after 4 years...when they have won yet another bunch of 16 test matches in a row..and let then be us again...not allowing the aussies to open their champagnes..Amen !!!!!

__________________
Tendulkar - A gift to the game of cricket

Interesting squads then in 2012

Australia

Jaques ?
Rogers ?
???????
???????
Clarke
???????
Ronchi
???????
Johnson
???????
Tait

India

Sehwag
???????
???????
???????
???????
Kathik
Dohni
???????
Harbhajan
RP Singh
Sharma

Actualy the Indian bowling division is starting to get a look of stability about it.

I've no comment to make on Rogers other than to note that he's generally come across as technically superior to the very limited Jaques (not that this helped him in county cricket: he bombed).

Jaques strikes me as a joke: even his Cricinfo profile can find nothing flattering to say of his "home-made technique". Steve Waugh apparently believes "he has the potential to be the next Adam Gilchrist": fine for a no 7... but a damning inditement of a player expected to face up to the swinging new ball in situations where playing through the line (and playing anything not hitting the stumps) is to be avoided at all costs.

Jaques goes too hard at the ball... has shown too little ability to milk runs with low-risk strokes... and whilst he might succeed despite these limitations, anyone who has any regard for Test cricket should be desperately hoping that he bombs quite spectacularly - Test cricket should have no space for such players.

Sadly... I'm not sure Australia have many better options: Hussey and Rogers might be the obvious partnership... but do either have Langer's discipline? I'm not convinced.

Indian fast / medium paced bowlers seem to be growing in numbers with decent quality in em. Gone are the days when india used to rely on prasad and srinath ALONE for some 2 to 3 years in a row. Guess thats what has got into zaheer's head. To much of competition for sharing the new ball. India still has a long way to go in the spin dept. There is no one to take over kumble's role. Bhajji is not in that class at all and chawla is more of a googly bowler.

RP singh, ishant sharma , zaheer khan, sreesanth, pankaj singh,Pathan are some of the names currently in the reckoning

Names gone to oblivion include nehra , balaji who were very good as well

__________________
Tendulkar - A gift to the game of cricket

Reminds me of a joke carried out in indian newspapers when india got kicked out of 2007 WC in the caribbean

The paper future dates to 2027
1) tendulkar crossses 30,000 runs and india lose again
2) pathan touches 60 kmph mark
3) Kumble still struggling to get ball spin overseas

__________________
Tendulkar - A gift to the game of cricket

Even after his lean trot in Perth the home spun Jaques is still averaging 49.75 in tests including 2 centuries and 4 half centuries from his 7 matches.

As for bombing at county cricket well he join some good company their including Ponting I think. Interesting that is a two edged sword rachael as plenty of supposedly impressive county cricket players seem to bomb at test cricket.

I stand by my comments that Rogers moves towards off stump before the ball leaves the bowlers hand at times. He might be able to get away with that on a spongy slow English county pitch againt a plodding seamer (probably where he developed the bad habit), but it has its limitations on quicker pitches elsewhere like here and with test bowlers rather than the occasional test bowler and English domestic bowlers coming at you.

Australia 2/100 at the moment with Ponting and Hussey batting as comfortably as one can imagine. The pitch also showing no signs of any "demons" in it.

Only 313 to go for an Aussie victory...

Bye Bye Ponting c Dravid b Sharma 45......Australia 3-117 Hussey no 26

Another 296 looks a long way away and almost impossible

Only major speed bump I see between India and victory are possible cyclones Symonds and Gilchrist.