Aussies struggling back after Master's Double Ton

The willow of Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar just wouldn’t stop. The batting maestro bettered his Bradmanisque record in 2010 by notching up his second double century of the year and sixth in all. It was mainly due to Tendulkar’s sublime knock of 214 runs that India managed to get a slender first-innings lead of 17 runs. After the batting virtuoso departed, the remaining wickets toppled and the hosts were dismissed for 495 at lunch.

Sachin Tendulkar

Resuming on 191, Tendulkar began day-four of second Test of the India-Australia Test series with a glorious cover-drive off Hilfenhaus. A couple overs later, he tapped one to the point with soft hands and charged for a single that brought up his 200. The batting legend celebrated his second double hundred against Australia with a beautiful straight drive off the next delivery.

Tendulkar, who played a chanceless knock, made his first mistake at 214 and had to head back to the pavilion. Peter George went on cloud nine when the master played one on to his stumps to give the debutant pacer his maiden Test wicket. Tendulkar’s knock that lasted for 363 balls and 433 minutes, was garnished with 22 sublime boundaries and two authoritative hits over the long-on fence.
Getting Tendulkar out brought a spring in the youngster’s stride and he produced a couple of beauties to make the batsmen jump and hop. He got the ball to seam away from Dhoni and troubled him with slow bouncer. In his next over, he dismissed Zaheer after Shane Watson had gotten rid of Harbhajan Singh. Australia pegged back with three wickets in as many overs.

Peter George was on cloud-nine after making Sachin Tendulkar his first Test victim.

MS Dhoni (30) hung in there at one end for a while. He started off on an attacking mode, smashing Michael Clarke and Nathan Hauritz for boundaries with a heave over mid-wicket and a slash over point. But after losing Tendulkar, the Indian captain dropped anchor and concentrated on not losing another wicket.

Pragyan Ojha never looked comfortable against the varying bounce of the wicket and the movement generated by George. Dhoni shielded him from the strike as much as he could and hence the runs became hard to come by. The Australians bowled four run-less overs before Hauritz got his first wicket of the innings after bowling 38 expensive overs, in form of Dhoni and wrapped up the Indian innings by dismissing Sreesanth. Hence, after Tendulkar departed with the score on 486, India lost the remaining wickets nine runs.