Krejza's magic spell revives Australians

An eight-wicket haul from the debutant off-spinner Jason Krejza and a swift 92 not out from Simon Katich enabled Australia to battle their way back into the fourth Test against India in Nagpur yesterday.

The home side started the day on 311 for 5, a strong position given they only need a draw to secure a series win. But Krejza ripped through the Indian tail to restrict Mahendra Singh Dhoni's team to 441 all out before Katich continued the recovery by moving to the brink of his fifth Test century.

Following the early dismissal of Matthew Hayden, run out by Murali Vijay at mid-on for 16 while attempting a quick single, Katich, in tandem with Michael Hussey, steadied the Australia innings, with the tourists reaching stumps 252 runs behind with eight wickets remaining.

Half-centuries from Sourav Ganguly and Dhoni helped India race past the 400 mark before Krejza, overlooked for the first three Tests, took centre stage. He broke the partnership by dismissing Dhoni, who moved past his half-century with consecutive boundaries off Mitchell Johnson. In a bid to clip Krejza away on the leg side, the India captain shuffled too far across his stumps and the ball turned sharply to remove his leg stump. Krejza then grabbed his fifth wicket by dismissing Ganguly later in the same over.

Ganguly, playing in his final Test, poked tentatively at a ball which straightened and clipped a thick edge to Michael Clarke at first slip. Zaheer Khan and Amit Mishra, who contributed one run between them, then departed to successive balls from Krejza. Although Krejza was denied a hat-trick he also snared Ishant Sharma to finish with figures of 8 for 215 and become just the eighth man in history to take eight wickets in an innings on his Test debut.

Australia's reply got off to a shaky start with Hayden joined back in the pavilion by Ricky Ponting with the score on 74. Ponting was fooled by Harbhajan Singh, the spinner claiming his 300th Test victim by cramping the Australia captain as he made room to cut a sharply turning delivery, with the ball going on to hit the stumps.

But Katich steadied the innings, hardly giving India's bowlers a chance while scoring at a run-a-ball rate as he sped towards a ton. The Western Australia opener added 115 with Hussey, who looked out of sorts at first before settling down to move on to 45 not out at the close.

"It's a bit of a blur still," Krejza said afterwards."I tried to keep doing what I was doing. I was happy to get the wickets. It's still unbelievable to me. It was an important session this morning, we wanted to get a couple of wickets earlier, but it's definitely swung back into our favour."

Krejza, a tall, loopy spinner, was chosen in place of seamer Stuart Clark as Australia sought to exploit the conditions in a bid to avoid their first series defeat in three years. "It's incredible. It's still pretty unbelievable, against the best players of spin in the world," added Krejza, who shifted from pace to spin as a young boy following two stress fractures in his back.

"We've got two batsmen who are very good and got us into a good position to win the game," claimed Krejza, whose father was a footballer from the Czech Republic and whose mother comes from Poland.

On the downside he also entered the record books yesterday for conceding the most runs by a Test debutant. "I think that's what good about Ricky, a lot of spinners would have got taken off," he said of his captain.

Scoreboard, Digest, page 17