 India beat Australia in the first warm-up game for both the sides that was played before the World Cup at the M Chinnaswamy in Bangalore. India won by 38 runs and saw the Australian captain Ricky Ponting involved in issues on and off the field.
Chasing 215 for a win, Ponting was the lone Australian batsman to get to 50. However,
while getting there, he was involved in a fracas with the Indian pace bowler S
Sreesanth. The incident happened when the bowler seemed to have beaten Ponting
all ends and appealed for a catch. The ball had squared him up totally and it
did seem to have hit something while going through to the wicket-keeper.
However, the umpire ruled the batsman not-out and Sreesanth had a go at Ponting.
Ponting did not hold back and gave it back to the bowler to which Sreesanth showed
him the L-sign - loser, in adolescent parlance. The two were seen giving it back
to each other throughout the Sreesanth spell.
Later after the game was lost, Ponting said that he was not happy with the kind
of track that was prepared for the game as they failed to play the spin bowlers.
From 118/1, the Aussies collapsed to 176 all out thanks to the four-wicket haul
by Piyush Chawla, to go with the bowling of Harbhajan Singh, who
Ponting said that he would prefer the wickets to play better than this.
had three wickets to his name.
What was surprising was that MS Dhoni echoed his views as well and said that such
pitches meant that the toss would become an important part in the game. Winning
toss, according to him, could translate into winning the match as one could bat
first, get to 230 and then make life difficult for the opposition.
Chasing 215 for a win, the Aussies looked well poised for a win when Ponting and
Tim Paine were going great guns. However, the batting fell apart once Paine departed.
Michael Clarke, Cameron White, David Hussey and Callum Ferguson were all
sent back in quick succession and Mitchell Johnson did bat for some time but Harbhajan's
wicket of Ponting meant that the rest of the side was rolled over for almost nothing.
Earlier, the Indians struggled against the bowling of Brett Lee, who grabbed three
wickets while only Virender Sehwag managed to get to a score of more than
50.
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