Of Milestones and Missed Chances....

On any other day, Mohali should have been a perfect venue for any speedster, if at all it came to making his debut in India. For Peter Siddle, the first delivery he bowled in test cricket – a perfect length bouncer to Gambhir – was also his best of the day, until the one that got Sachin out towards the fag end.

It has been a season of debutantes for Australia and it is going to stay so for some more time. Peter Siddle became the fifth player to make his debut for Australia in as many months, and the third one after Cameroon White and Shane Watson in last two tests. Therein lies a lesson or two, for both Indian selectors and the senior players alike, to plan and work their retirements in a phased mannered. By all accounts, India will be much more severely affected by the en masse retirements of 'Fab Four', if not five.

The other debutante of this test – Amit Mishra – must be thanking his luck and Ricky Ponting for calling it wrong at the toss of the coin. The first day has already proved how difficult it was for the fellow members of his ilk to bowl in perfect batting conditions. How hard it was, can also be gauged by the fact that Ponting employed a deep backward point and a deep square leg as early as the 11th over.

The Sehwag - Gambhir pair has been India's best since the other Delhi combo of Sehwag and Akash Chopra split in 2004. Which is why I was happy the selectors did not fiddle around with this pair under the guise of playing an extra fast bowler/ all rounder.

It is worrying that Gambhir has not been able to convert his starts into big ones. A case in point being his healthy average of over 50 in the recent series agaginst Sri Lanka, with a top score of just 74 runs. His dismissal along with that of Dravid and VVS almost put paid to India's hopes of a healthy day one score after a good start.

After that, it was a day of personal milestones, with Ganguly getting to the 7000 runs mark and Sachin scaling the summit of highest test runs. Under normal circumstances Sachin's landmark should have been a cause for celebration or even a separate post on the blog! For me, though, it was more a sigh of relief. It took a long time coming and his last few knocks were somewhat remniscent of the time when Kapil was desperately fishing for his record 432d wicket.

Personal landmarks tend to fog the distant team goals and it was good that these two records were done with on the very first day. Sometimes pressure can be very inhibiting as was evident in Sachin's last few innings. We saw a very different and liberated Sachin once he got past Brian Lara, sometimes displaying the same flamboyance that Lara did when he broke Alan Border's record.

Having also reached his 50th fifty, Sachin has taken India to some semblence of safety at the end of day one. But 311/5 still does not look like a good score considering that Australia will bat on a pitch that will play a perfect host on day two and three. India would have loved to see Sachin stay unbeaten. But all that is past now. Ganguly needs to pick the baton from here on. While Sachin will have many more opportunities to make amends for the missed century, Ganguly's countdown has already begun. He has to make each of his innings to count big from here on.

So far he has looked good to score a half century in this innings and his form has been decent in last couple of matches.

As the sun sets on his long, eventful and somewhat controversial career, tomorrow will present yet another battle for this combative player - perhaps the most important one - as he leads India's quest to score a defendable first innings total.