Fastest debut ton floors Oz
Talk about making the most of opportunity. Lefthander Shikhar Dhawan was extended one at the expense of Delhi team mate Virender Sehwag, and literally made the most of it, racking up a best-ever score on debut by an Indian and also the quickest hundred on first appearance anywhere.
At close, Dhawan was unbeaten on 185 magnificently-crafted runs at the PCA Stadium here on Saturday that included 33 fours and two sixes.
Most teams setting off behind the opposition’s 400-plus score in a Test match would opt for the safety-first approach first. None of that for Dhawan, though. Having waited two full overs to face his first ball, he took four deliveries to race through for that very first run. Thereafter, it was as if a storm had broken over Mohali.
Peter Siddle was the first to get singed as Dhawan’s sixth and ninth balls faced scorched the PCA Stadium turf. After that, it did not matter who had the ball in his hand - it was all the same to the 27year-old left-hander.
On his best day, Virender Sehwag was brutal, Sourav Ganguly oozed class, especially on the offside, Rahul Dravid was all about timing and V.V.S. Laxman about deft placing. Put that in a blender and you have the essential ingredients of Dhawan’s debut knock. It was the stuff of schoolboy cricketing dreams.
Each shot was crisply hit. Every boundary — and there were literally dozens that flowed off a bat that would have looked as wide as a door by the end to Michael Clarke and his decimated attack — came out of the copy-book. Rarely have timing and placement come together in such graceful accord.
There was ruthlessness
At close, Dhawan was unbeaten on 185 magnificently-crafted runs that included 33 fours and two sixes
in plenty, but delivered with such delicate elegance that not just opening partner Murali Vijay and the 11 Australians on the field, but the sparse crowd at the stadium was forced to acknowledge the quality of batsmanship that was being put on display for them.
If the fast men were met with sweetly-timed pushes into the covers and controlled pull shots, the spinners were greeted by dancing feet and twinkle toes that invariably saw Dhawan get to the pitch of the ball in perfect position to put it away, regardless of the angles Clarke employed to cut off the runs.
Early on, Dhawan unleashed a full-blooded drive against Moises Henriques when he let the bat describe the full arc, a typically Yuvraj Singh boomer.
But the timing thereafter was so good that he rarely allowed the bat to flow all the way through, most of his strokes ending with the willow parallel to the ground, and positioned down the direction of the front foot.
Such was the Delhi batsman’s control that his first stroke that he was not fully on control of came in the nineties, an uppish slash off Siddle that flew past a diving third slip. It was only after the three-figure mark that he opened his shoulders
By the time stumps had been drawn, a raft of records were in the dustbin of history, and a match threatening to drift away from India at one point, very much back in their control.