Simon Katich and rookie Michael Clarke shared a century partnership on Wednesday as Australia regained the ascendancy from India’s spin bowlers to finish with an opening-day total of 316 for five in the first cricket Test.
Indian leg-spinner Anil Kumble kept India in the contest with a haul of three for 86 and joined the elite group of bowlers with 400 Test wickets in the process.
Katich (81) and Clarke (76 not out) broke a brief period of Indian spin domination in the afternoon by scoring a brisk 107 for the fifth wicket in two hours.
Stand-in skipper Adam Gilchrist went on to compile a confident 35 not out to give the tourists 139 runs in the last session.
Australia’s quest for its first Test series win on Indian soil in 35 years began with openers Justin Langer (52) putting on 50 for the opening partnership with Matthew Hayden (26). Bill Lawry’s 1969 team clinched the last Australian series win in India.
Hayden, who scored more than 500 runs to emerge as Australia’s most successful batsman during the last tour to India in 2001, was the only wicket to fall in the first session. Hayden was dismissed when he swept off-spinner Harbhajan Singh straight to Yuvraj Singh at deep square-leg.
Langer and Katich added another 74 for the second wicket before left-arm pacer Irfan Pathan broke up the stand by clean bowling Langer off his pads. Langer’s composed 167-minute knock contained five boundaries from 126 balls.
Bangalore’s local hero, Kumble, is the ninth bowler in the world – and the second Indian – to claim 400 Test wickets.
Kumble, who turns 34 next week, dismissed Damien Martyn (3) and Darren Lehmann (17) in quick succession before Katich’s wicket took his tally of dismissals to 400 from 85 Tests. Katich faltered in an attempted pull shot and the ball scraped his arm before dislodging the stumps.
Medium-pacer Kapil Dev (434 wickets) is the only other Indian to feature in the exclusive club of cricket’s 400-wicket bowlers, where Kumble is the third spinner after Sri Lanka’s Muttiah Muralitharan and Aussie Shane Warne.
Pace bowlers Courtney Walsh of the West Indies (519), Australian Glenn McGrath (440), New Zealander Richard Hadlee (431), Pakistan’s Wasim Akram (414) and another West Indian, Curtly Ambrose (405), are the others to have got 400 dismissals. – Sapa-AP