The first test match between India and Australia held at Melbourne, ended in a shameless defeat for India. To put it in a more convincing manner India was boxed out of the Boxing Day test match.

There were lot of expectation of a much more improved performance coming from the Indian test team especially in the light of its previous performance in Australia and also recently India had being playing good cricket- winning the T20 championship and a series win over Pakistan.

The fist day’s spoil of the Boxing Day test was evenly shared by both the teams….India taking up 9 wickets and Australia scoring in excess of 300 runs. Indian captain Anil Kumble showed why he is one of the most feared bowlers in the world by grabbing up 5 Australian wickets.

With Australia scoring 341 runs in their first innings all hopes was pinned on the famous Indian batting lineup which comprised of Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, Sourav Ganguly, Laxman, Yuvraj Singh and Dhoni…every body including me was expecting that our batsmen will match the Australian score or better still will get valuable first innings lead between 50-100 runs. But alas, this just proved out to be wishful thinking. The whole Indian team was bowled out for less than 200 runs on a good batting track.

The seconds innings went on predictable lines with Australia scoring at a rapid pace, the Indian bowlers in the second innings were guilty of some wayward bowling specially Zaheer Khan- he bowled 12 no-balls. Australia went up to score 357 runs for the loss of 7 wickets in their second innings thus setting up a target of 499 runs for India to chase.

Everyone was expecting a much improved batting performance from the Indian batsmen but once again some Indian batsmen like flourished to falter and were shot out for 161.

In nutshell, it was a pathetic batting display from the top Indian batsmen from whom much was expected of …..seems there is something seriously wrong with Indian batting – that a batting line up consisting of some of the top batsmen in the world can’t even score 200 runs in both innings. Time for team India to pull up their socks and prove a point or two in the second test starting Jan. 2, 2008.