By IANS
Sydney : India let Australia get back into the second cricket Test by losing the wickets of free-stroking Sourav Ganguly and Yuvraj Singh in the first session as they moved to 322 for five on the third day at the Sydney Cricket Ground (SCG) here Friday.
Brad Hogg first tempted Ganguly to go over the top and the left-hander failed to clear mid-off and with the second new ball Brett Lee ended the agonizing stay of Yuvraj by trapping him leg before.
Ganguly batted fluently for 67 in his 108-run stand with Sachin Tendulkar, while Yuvraj made 12. Tendulkar was batting 52 at the break and vice-captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni was with him on one.
India, resuming at 216 for three, played out the best part of the pre-lunch session and looked good to overhaul Australia’s first-innings score of 436 till Ganguly’s dismissal without notice.
Tendulkar, however, batted with a lot application and determination to grind the Australian attack. He will be the pivot around whom the lower-order Indian batting will have to try and get the 141 runs still needed to catch up with the Australians’ first-innings total.
Like it happened on the second afternoon when Rahul Dravid and V.V.S. Laxman left in quick succession, this morning Tendulkar came perilously close to getting out leg before the wicket two balls after Ganguly’s dismissal. However, umpire Mark Benson rejected part-time left arm spinner Michael Clarke’s vociferous leg before appeal.