India 258/8 after 50 overs( Tendulkar 91, Yuvraj Singh 38, Dhoni 36)
India after winning the toss elected to bat, they got off to an excellent start and lost their first wicket(Uthappa 30) at 94 runs of 20.5 overs, Tendulkar had a third wicket partnership with Yuvraj of 54 which took the score to 3/175 the platform was laid for a big total and when Dhoni and Sachin were batting it seemed India will post an Imposing total and the shut the doors for their opponents, but Sachin got out at 91 in the 40th over when the score was 205, Sachin was unlucky not to complete his 2nd century in this series, the partner ship between Dhoni and IK Pathan lost the momentum for India it started in the 42nd over and lasted for 6.1 overs and only 28 runs were scored of these precious overs the first five overs of this partnership only yeilded 16 runs, with wickets in hand these players should have played more aggressively, I think India lost a opportunity there to completely shut out their opponents. In the end India set a target of 259 for Australia which is a good score, but India are missing their star performer Ishaant who sustained a finger injury in the last match.
Although Australia rarely loses at Gabba but its a win or go home situation for them tonight in this high pressure series, their pride is at stake their top order has betrayed them on many occasions in this series, and two of their star performers Ponting and Symonds are yet to fire in this series both are averaging 21 and 16 respectively.
Their coach has openly admitted that the star studded batting line up is running low on confidence, and the mental side of the game is letting them down.
If Australia loses tonight it will have to live with accusations it became distracted by the rolling verbal slugfest with Harbhajan Singh, the constant talk over the massive deals the Australians have signed with the Indian Premier League and the disappointment at CA’s lack of support for Symonds in the Monkeygate affair.It will be the first time when the Australians will not only lose the mind games but also the on field game, their strategy to embroil visiting players in controversies fired back as Harbhajan Singh was fully supported by his team mates and his board as a result he was fearless through out the series, he counter attacked and after each incident he gave a better performance.
Australia are 20/2 right now and it seems it will be a sad farewell for Gilchrist and Hogg.
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