Nathan Bracken comes on to bowl with Sachin Tendulkar in full cry. Inside the first 25 overs, with the field restrictions still in place, Bracken gives away a miserly nine runs in his first six overs. Not a profound statistic in its own right. Take a look however at the Indian mediumpacers. Javagal Srinath 10-0-61-1, Zaheer Khan 10-0-71-1 and Ajit Agarkar 9-0-63-0 basically finished India's chances before 50 overs were bowled.

Javagal Srinath is India's most experienced fast bowler. There are a fair few who think that's only a thinly veiled way of saying Srinath is no spring chicken. An experienced bowler is one who knows how to adapt to various tracks. The pitch at the Indira Priyadarshini Stadium at Vishakapatnam was a standard subcontinent one-day wicket - flat as a surfboard, dry and full of runs. It's on a pitch like this that a genuinely experienced fast bowler comes into his own. Using the width of the crease, varying the speed of the delivery, cutting the ball off the seam.

Srinath did none of that today. The Karnataka speedster bowled straight up and down and was taken to the cleaners. Srinath of course can always take heart in the fact that he was not alone in the treatment meted out. Zaheer Khan was never sure what line or length to bowl. Experimenting non stop, he was too full at times and over-compensated by banging the ball in short and getting pulled away. Also, let us not forget Zaheer's sterling effort in Bangalore. In the previous one-dayer, Adam Gilchrist took Zaheer apart as though he was an old motor car that was being stripped down. On that occasion Zaheer went for 51 off just six overs.

The goofer of the day today clearly was India’s fast bowling triumvirate giving away 195 runs between them and handing Australia the match on a platter. All this on a day when Steve Waugh bowling medium pace after ages scalped three wickets!

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