E-Paper
Day III: Spills apart, Team India holds edge in thriller
The match has now swung in India's favour, reports Pradeep Magazine. Full Scorecard || Key Battles
The Chidambaram Stadium on Saturday was like a cauldron in which about 40,000 people were sweating profusely but their eyes were still glued to the ground. This, so far, has been a Test in which every ball bowled, every run scored, every run saved, every run conceded and every single wicket taken could have a bearing on the end result of the match.
By evening, Sourav Ganguly was chewing his thumbnails, his face dripping with tension. So were the thousands watching the tense, see-saw struggle through the day. If the dice appeared loaded fully in India's favour in the morning, by evening the Australians, having conceded a 141-run lead, were fighting it out and had even wiped out the deficit with seven wickets in hand.
One could sense that the Indians were getting that uneasy feeling that the match was slipping out of their hands.
Adam Gilchrist, the man who on this tour, has, through his exemplary behaviour on and off the field, been one of the best advertisements for Australian cricket, was the one who, through his bold and imaginative move of coming in to bat at Number 3, infused this Test with a life of its own.
He had seen his team lose initiative on Friday through some horrendous catching lapses and in the morning, the Indian pair of Md Kaif and Parthiv Patel consolidated India's position through some very sensible batting.
