Day 5 and there was no Alexi Laiho doing a swan song for Australia with a draw.  Zaheer mopped them up in pretty quick time. Johnson might have done a ‘dizzy’ but couldn’t. Australia was truly trashed.

I am deeply disappointed with the way Australia played. It is the not the first time Australia has lost a test match and nor will be the last, but I have never seen an Australian team stop short of literally playing the fiddle… No spirit, no fight… So un-Australian. Hell, even in that Perth test when they were going down, there was a fight… A fight which makes Australia such a respected team.

I have respected Ricky Ponting for his captaincy and his aggression in trying to win from any situation. I never believed that he was ‘merely’ a captain who was blessed with a ‘great team’. Some of the statements and actions which have come out from him now reflect a man who doesn’t have faith in this team, almost reinforcing that ‘yes’, am useless without those ’star’ bowlers.

Ricky, you don’t have a shitty team… They are still the best out there in the world. Sure, Lee was a huge let-down but you ought to back your best bowler, not piss him off, as though Hussey could save Australia with the ball.

Is it rocket science to understand that the two Indian openers are the key to subduing India? You watched it unfold in Bangalore and nearly pulled it off. And what did you do in this test match? Spread the field… Like 11 giant Australian nipples that screamed “Milk me, Milk me”.

By far, Lee might have been ordinary but you certainly did not give the best chance to your bowlers in picking wickets. And you won’t win a match like this. You never have by the way in this fashion.

There is so much being spoken about the reverse swing. Let’s be honest, the Australians have never been great exponents of reverse swing. Surely, they did not win a series the last time around with reverse swing, so why the panic in their camp?

For the Indians, I am pleased to see Amit Mishra do well in his debut. Sure, the mainstream media will be all over him. They will speak to his family, his unborn kids and rave. For a change, read through some of our blogs in this network and see the faith we have time and again, relentlessly put on you… You made us proud. To be honest, in the first innings, I thought he bowled below par with too many dolly half trackers being offered, but he got a fiver with some great deliveries. In the second innings, it was as good as I have seen him bowl in the domestic matches, but he was not that successful.

And what were the selectors thinking? They picked him for the first two tests and slated him to play the challenger trophy while the other two tests unfold. So did they pick him with just the intention of handing out the towels? Is it merely ok to pick people just to give a glimpse of the star life in the Indian national team? If Kumble was not injured, he might have well been a passing bird.

The wisdom of Australia’s approach to the second innings was ridiculous. Sure, you can’t block for a draw and the best chance of playing out those sessions was in being positive. But their brand of positive cricket was the twenty-20 style of hitting out. When you normally can’t last 20 overs in that fashion, did you actually believe you can survive 140 overs that way? Jeez.

Australia could have saved this one if they had remained positive like Clarke and Haddin and not overdo that positivity.

There are two more tests. They nearly had Bangalore and now they lost this one. The next two are absolute flat-bedders that traditionally spin viciously. Australia can draw the series but if this test is an indication of the strategies and mind-set of the team, then it is going to be difficult.

Mathew Hayden and Andrew Symonds have been the single biggest difference when playing with India. Symonds is out and Hayden may well find the much needed inspiration. It was a pity to see Jacques injured and somewhere in the outback is Shaun Marsh lost amid some strange selection policies.

Peter Siddle bowled decently but there is Doug Bollinger who has been the better performer sitting in the cold. Strange considering he was in the recent ‘A’ tour and did quite well. To say that there is not a single spinner in the ranks is puzzling and perhaps a reflection of how unfair the criticism meted out to the likes of Hogg have gone in emptying the treasury rather prematurely.

Anil Kumble will be back in the next test. The team selection to include the champion will be troubled. The approach to the next two games will be predictably different to this one. Dhoni looks a different player when he is the captain, almost as if he deliberately throws his wicket when he is not at the helm. India look tougher with Dhoni at the helm.

The biggest plus that came out for me with Dhoni on the captaincy was making Harbhajan bowl that off-stump line and he was vicious. How some of us bloggers have been screaming this out! Rocket-science huh? 300 was not to be, but he will in this series.

Two more tests, the English will prematurely be licking their lips for the ashes. India might be fancying a series win. Bottom line, there are big problems in the path to the future of Indian cricket and nobody has a clue how to address it… This will serve as a big distraction.

For Australia, yet again it is all up to Mathew Hayden. Their fans can be assured that he won’t be talking in the ‘third person’ anymore. The most significant observation came from an Aussie cricket fan. “So this is how the world feels when they played against Australia for a decade”.

Golden words!