Two all-too-brief pockets of excitement, and another hundred by Matthew Hayden, did little to raise the quality of a stop-start penultimate day's play at the Sydney Cricket Ground. There was little impetus or momentum for major parts of day four of the second Test on Saturday, which ended with Australia 213 ahead, and looking to press on on the final morning before enforcing the declaration.
India's 69-run advantage erased without the loss of a wicket, Australia rode on Hayden's 29th Test hundred — the numerical equal of Sir Don Bradman — to reach 282 for four when bad light stopped play. The final day will begin half an hour early to compensate for some of the 12 overs lost on Saturday.
The gradual decline of the bounce that had made this strip such a cricketing delight over the first three days led to neither the bat nor the ball calling the shots. Stroke-making, especially at the start of one's innings, was hazardous; there was little help for India's spin twins, who got the ball to turn a fair bit without troubling the batsmen too much.
Australia's primary goal upon resuming at 13 without loss was to deny the Indians early blood, and the resultant adrenaline rush.
Capable ally
It was a task Phil Jaques and Hayden performed with aplomb. Then, after India had struck twice in 10 deliveries through Anil Kumble and Harbhajan Singh to generate some spark, Hayden found a capable ally in Mike Hussey as he ground the bowling on his way to a hard-working rather than spectacular century. Troubled by a sore right thigh necessitating his captain to run for him, Hayden hardly played a stroke worth remembering. An innings of immense value rather than aesthetic beauty, Hayden will remember it more for keeping his concentration through repeated interruptions.
Manful effort
India's spinners toiled manfully, but were defeated as much by the lack of bounce as their own inconsistencies. Kumble was a bit of a let down, perhaps thrown off track by the sweeps Hayden employed early on, as he bowled too full or dragged it down far too often to pose a genuine threat. Harbhajan shook off the aftereffects of a potentially devastating racial abuse charge to acquit himself with great credit, his celebration at getting rid of Ricky Ponting -- for an eighth time in nine innings -- a memorable outpouring of emotion and steam.
Jaques' scalp was Kumble's 100th against Australia, making him the first Indian bowler to reach a ton against any country. Harbhajan continued his mastery of Ponting by having him caught off the leading edge at silly point -- the fifth time he had dismissed the Aussie captain with his first delivery to the batsman -- and set off on a sprint that took him almost to the dressing room before he did a rolling double somersault in front of the Members' Stand.
Kumble could so easily have finished the day with a hat-trick. Hayden and Hussey had added 160 (173m, 266b) for the third wicket when the former picked up point with one reverse sweep too many. Michael Clarke was caught at slip first ball cutting a googly, then chose to take his chance with Steve Bucknor, who waited an eternity before ruling the batsman out. Suddenly, the sparsely-populated SCG came alive, and not merely at the prospect of the Kumble hat-trick.
After all, new man in was Andrew Symonds, alongside Harbhajan the key player in the racial abuse drama. Kumble pinged the tall right-hander, stretching forward, on his front pad below the knee roll with another googly. The Indians went up in vociferous appeal, convinced they had got their man; Bucknor deemed that the ball would have gone over the top. It was a close call, but India ought to have realised by then that close calls were never going to go their way, not after they had been denied far more straightforward 'outs.'
If Symonds was the beneficiary in the first innings, it was Hussey's turn on Saturday. Kumble beat him for bounce and pushed him back to catch him palpably in front but Mark Benson, having as bad a game as his West Indian counterpart, kept his finger down. Benson erred again when Mahendra Singh Dhoni caught a glance off the face of the bat off Rudra Pratap Singh. Making the most of those two gifts when 22 and 45 respectively, Mr Cricket had closed in on an eighth Test hundred by stumps.

SCORE BOARD

AUSTRALIA (I Innings): 463 all out in 112.3 overs
INDIA (I Innings): 532 all out in 138.2 overs
AUSTRALIA (II Innings, O/n: 13/0):
Jaques c Yuvraj b Kumble 42
(110m, 82b, 5x4)
Hayden c Jaffer b Kumble 123
(291m, 196b, 12x4)
Ponting c Laxman b Harbhajan 1
(7m, 4b)
Hussey (batting) 87
(222m, 186b, 10x4)
Clarke c Dravid b Kumble 0
(1m, 1b)
Symonds (batting) 14
(47m, 36b, 1x4)
Extras (B-3, LB-3, W-2, NB-7) 15
Total (for 4 wkts, 83 overs) 282
Fall of wickets: 1-85 (Jaques), 2-90 (Ponting), 3-250 (Hayden), 4-250 (Clarke).
Bowling: RP Singh 14-2-47-0 (w-1), Ishant Sharma 8-1-37-0 (w-1, nb-2), Harbhajan Singh 28-5-65-1, Anil Kumble 29-3-110-3 (nb-5), Sachin Tendulkar 2-0-6-0, Yuvraj Singh 2-0-12-0.