Mohali: India took control of proceedings on the second morning of the Mohali Test on Saturday when Harbhajan Singh removed Shane Watson to give India the much-needed breakthrough shortly before lunch. The Aussie opener scored 126 but wasn't allowed to score freely by a disciplined Indian attack.
The second day began with India slightly ahead after ending day one just a wicket short of the Aussie tail at 224/5. The visitors, though, had hopes in Shane Watson (101) to turn his overnight century into a big one with support from last of the recognised Aussie batsmen, wicketkeeper Tim Paine (1).
Having said that, the Australian tail is led by Nathan Hauritz and Mitchell Johnson who are no bunnies with the bat and will try to put a big price tag on their wicket.
But Dhoni, who chose not to take the new ball after Zaheer produced wicket-taking reverse swing late in the day, would hope his pace spearhead to continue from where he left on day one and add to his tally of three wickets on Saturday.
The spin duo of Pragyan Ojha and Harbhajan Singh kept a tight leash on the Aussies after the Indian bowlers leaked 101 runs for just a solitary wicket in the morning session on Friday. But that allowed Zaheer to attack and get among the wickets to bring India back in the match.
Ishant Sharma still has a question mark on his injury and it remains to be seen if he would be available to bowl.
The gameplan for India would be to get wickets early, while Australia will try to get as close as possible to 400 to put pressure on India. But Australia's final score will depend on how much more damage Watson can cause and India would look up to Zaheer to limit the Aussies to under 350.
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