Date-stamped : 16 Nov93 - 19:40 India v Australia, Test 2, Match Report 26-30Dec91, MCG, Melbourne Ind 1st inns Srikkanth tried to flick a ball away on the leg side, and the ball hit the back of the bat and popped up into the air for short leg to take an easy catch. Prabhakar, playing as a third opener for the Indians, was bowled first ball on the leg stump by Bruce Reid. Reid was on a hat trick but the third ball to Manjrekar went harmlessly down the leg side. Later, Manjrekar on 2 was dropped in slips by Mark Taylor from the last ball of Merv Hughes' first over. Shastri was out dabbing at a ball outside the off stump, which he only got a small edge to. Lunch was taken with the dismissal. There was a spot of controversy earlier when Azharuddin hit the ball to slips. Mark Waugh grabbed it, dropped it, and grabbed it again. The umpires could not tell whether the ball had hit the ground or not between the catches so Azha was given not out. Alan Border, fielding next to Waugh, conferred with the umpires then asked Azha whether he wanted to declare himself out maybe. Azha declined as he had not seen the catch. Border and Mark Waugh were very annoyed that the batsman had been caught but was not out. Azharuddin was out slashing outside the off stump. The ball went straight to Jones at cover. In the next over, Vengsarkar played a little push on the leg side, which somehow popped up to mid-on where the catch was taken by Bruce Reid. Tendulkar was dismissed when he got an outside edge to a delivery from Reid. Mark Waugh took the catch in slips moving to his right. Kapil Dev's innings was interesting he seemed determined to hook Bruce Reid who was moving the ball across the batsman to the off side. Eventually though, Kapil was dismissed trying to play a similar shot from McDermott and was caught by Hughes near the deep backward square boundary. For the rest of the afternoon there was some rather uninterest- ing but steady batting from More and Raju, both moving to their highest scores against Australia. Raju was finally caught trying to defend his body from a sharply rising ball. He played the shot with an angled bat, and it went to slips. The partnership of 77 was a record for India v. Australia tests, surpassing the former record of 57 held by Kirmani and Gavri at Sydney 1980-81 and also Dev and Yadav 1986-87 at Madras. The Indians batted on on the second morning, when More hit everything as hard as he could before he lost his final partner. The Indians looked also break- ing the record for the final wicket stand. Tony Greig in the Channel Nine commentary box mentioned that the record was held by Messrs Gavaskar and Yadav. Sunny, also in the commentary box, asked "Did you say Mrs Gavaskar?" The camera then turned to Mrs Gavaskar who was sitting in the stands, and not appear to be worried about her record being broken at all. Finally Srinath at- tempted to play the "gentle lift over the top of slips" but instead played the gentle lift into Alan Border's hands, and the Indians were all out for 263. Aus 1st inns Taylor failed to compensate for the swing of Prabhakar and got an outside edge trying to play a defensive shot into the ground. Boon played a ball on to his pad, and it popped up to be taken by Srikkanth at bat-pad. In this test series, Boon has cought Srik- kanth at bat-pad three times. Border was out in the same over, completely missing a ball from Kapil which swung and nipped back. Jones batted well, with fours in all directions. On 59, he slapped away a ball that had fallen after being caught in his pad. More appealed for out handling the ball, but it was not given for no apparent reason. Later in the over, Prabhakar fired a bouncer down the off side. Jones tried to pull it away, but only got an edge and the ball went straight through to More. Mark Waugh was trying to pull a ball to the deep fine leg boun- dary, but got a top edge and the ball popped up in front of him. More ran around to take an easy catch. Geoff Marsh was the first man out on the third day when he re- ceived an outsw- inger from Kapil. He tried to play a backwards de- fensive shot but got an outside edge which went into the slips. Merv Hughes arrived at the crease, and seemed to expect the bouncer that Prabhakar fired at him. Merv belted it to the square leg boun- dary. The next shot went for 3, and then Healy hit a four, taking some of the shine from Prabhakar's wicket. Prabhakar was soon taken out of the attack and replaced by Srinath. Merv didn't mind, he clouted the ball over the fence into the new grandstand where Channel 9 cameraman Mike Keogh went to retrieve it. A further incident involving Merv was when he was caught behind from More. The umpire thought the ball had not carried (though it had) and Merv was given not out. Azha had to talk to Prabhakar several times to settle him down. After lunch, Kapil had a beautiful spell in which he beat Healy several times out- side off stump. Healy continued to miss, so Ka- pil took matters into his own hands and bowled him the straight ball which cut away to hit Healy's pad directly in front of leg stump. He con- tinued to bowl well, stopping Hughes and McDermott from scoring as they would like to. Eventually Hughes tried to loft Kapil over the mid-on fieldsman, and hit the ball into the air. Ten- dulkar took the catch. With this wicket, Kapil took 5 wickets against Australia for the 6th time, equalling Richie Benaud's record for Australia-India tests. Bruce Reid came to the crease. Reid has 88 test runs and 100 test wickets. McDermott, with an average of 10, was farming the strike while the commentators discussed the similarities between Reid and Chandrasekhar. Ind 2nd inns Srikkanth didn't play at a ball that was going to clobber leg stump. Shastri was out to a typical outside edge from the ball across the body. Manjrekar played at a sharply rising ball from McDermott, but only succeeded in deflecting it to the keeper. Azharuddin was attempting to cut or something, and got an out- side edge. Raju was brought in an night watchman, and played an awkward defensive stroke which popped up to the bowler. Vengsar- kar was brought in and no more wickets fell on the third day. Next morning, Vengsarkar and Tendulkar started slowly. Tendul- kar decided that the introduction of Peter Taylor was a good rea- son to hit some runs, but mis-timed a straight drive and was caught by Border at long on. Kapil Dev was an outside edge from Reid - it's getting monotonous that mode of dismissal - the Englishmen did it all last sum- mer as well. Prabhakar did the same. More was caught by a ball that swung in - he may have been moving slowly because of a leg injury. Tendulkar was running for him at the time. Vengsarkar was finally dismissed trying to score runs while there was still time. He mis-timed a pull shot and was out to a brilliant diving catch by Mike Whitney. Australia needed 128 to win. Aus 2nd inns Geoff Marsh was caught in front when a ball kept down in line with leg stump. Taylor and Boon batted solidly, hitting some good shots. They were assisted by Prabhakar's insistence on bowling bouncers - Taylor put two in a row into the fence. When the score was on 122, Mark Taylor tried to hit Raju out of the ground to win the match. Unfortunately he missed and was stumped by More. Thanks to Friendless on r.s.c. Contributed by probal (probal@*rutgers.edu)