MELBOURNE: James Pattinson, the 21-year-old paceman, delivered the sucker punch as Australia knocked India cold at the MCG on Thursday, winning the Boxing Day Test by a comfortable 122-run margin with well over a day to spare.
Scorecard | Match in Pics
'Foreign fever' returned to grip the Indian team as Pattinson, Ben Hilfenhaus and Peter Siddle tormented them - much like the English bowlers had done in England - with a heady cocktail of pace, bounce and movement served with relentless consistency.
The 'Three Musketeers' complemented one another to share 19 of the 20 Indian wickets that went down with Pattinson, the youngest - and by far the quickest - landing four deadly blows in the second innings to derail India's chase for an improbable victory.
With no Indian team having ever won the first Test of a series in Australia, history and form favoured the home team, especially after their last two wickets had rubbed salt into India's wound by adding 61 runs to their overnight tally of 179 for eight.
Pattinson, who wasn't even born when Sachin Tendulkar made his Test debut, starred with the bat, contributing an unbeaten 37. He also shared a remarkable 43-run partnership for the last wicket with Hilfenhaus (14) to make sure that India would need as many as 292 to finish on top.
Those expecting India's much-vaunted batting line-up to give Australia a run for their money were disappointed when Dhoni and Co surrendered without even putting up a semblance of a fight.
Virender Sehwag, who had boasted on Wednesday that any target below 300 would be "achievable", let his team down badly at the outset by attempting an extravagant square cut that was gobbled up by Mike Hussey at gully.
His opening partner Gautam Gambhir spent 52 uncomfortable minutes at the crease during which he hopped around like a sparrow before edging a rising ball from Siddle to Ricky Ponting at second slip.
The victory chase soon became a battle for survival when 'The Wall' was breached. It was Pattinson's turn to rifle one through Rahul Dravid's defence to end his hour-long vigil at the crease. Pattinson thus became the third Australian bowler in the match to rattle Dravid's stumps.
In the first innings, Siddle had clean-bowled Dravid with a fast and furious in-cutter, but it turned out to be a no-ball. Dravid, however, failed to make most of this lucky break as Hilfenhaus whipped one through the 'gate' on the third morning to expose a flaw in the defensive technique of a the modern-day great who also happens to be the oldest player on the Test circuit.
VVS Laxman, easily the most stylish of India's 'Fab Five', added another failure to his name by popping up a simple catch off Pattinson to Ed Cowan at square leg on what was surely his last appearance at the MCG.
Virat Kohli, the only emerging Indian batting talent on view, cut a sorry figure once again by playing across the line to Hilfenhaus. He invited further ridicule on himself by pointing to the bat after being adjudged lbw. TV replays showed no contact between the bat and ball, but the willow brushing a pad.
As long as he was there, Tendulkar was unruffled and untroubled by what the three Australian pacers threw at him. However, after holding his composure for an hour and a quarter, his patience ran out and he followed lesser mortals on the road to self-destruction. There was simply no escape for the Little Master as a thick outside edge off a Siddle delivery flew to the thickly-populated slip cordon where Hussey held it towards gully.
Tendulkar's long walk back meant MCG, too, missed out on his magical landmark that is fast acquiring a Utopian hue.
By the time Dhoni came in, it was all over, bar the shouting. The Indian captain was his cool self, but looked a bit clueless too in the face of adversity. Dhoni and R Ashwin played a few bold strokes to boost India's bottomline, while the tail wagged to delay the inevitable.
The only positive for India in this match was the strong display by their pacers. It is not often that Indian bowlers have bowled out a rival side cheaply twice in an overseas Test match. The strong show by Zaheer Khan, Ishant Sharma and Umesh Yadav augurs well for India in the remaining three matches even as they wait for Ashwin to come to the party.
