Matthew Engel

In Sydney

The Sydney papers had special wrap-around supplements yesterday paying homage to Steve Waugh, adding several thousand more words to the mountain of adulation surrounding his retirement. They failed to mention, but only just, how he had discovered penicillin, the theory of magnetism and the North-West Passage.

They forgot something else, too: that there is another batsman in this Test series of reasonable quality, a man who has been biding his time waiting to get a piece of the action.

With the Sydney Cricket Ground jammed full, Sachin Tendulkar seized his moment. By the close of the first day of the fourth and final Australia-India Test, he was 73 not out - his first Test 50 in 14 months - with India 284 for three.

The outcome of this series, one of the most compelling in years and now standing at 1-1, may well depend on whether Tendulkar can turn that score into a huge hundred or not.

By conventional cricket values India are already in a powerful position. But in the last few weeks the notion of what constitutes an unassailable first-innings total has been dramatically revalued.

England started the trend by winning after conceding 484 against South Africa at The Oval in September. Now these two mighty sets of batsmen have rewritten the laws of cricketing mathematics. Last week in Melbourne India were 278 for one - and went down by nine wickets. In Adelaide before that Australia scored 556 and lost.

India are not just trying to score runs or even to occupy the crease; they actively want to keep Australia in the field. It is no joke playing back-to-back Tests with only two days' rest in 40 degrees. And, when Waugh came out for his last toss, his bowlers were praying for Sourav Ganguly to call wrong so they could have another 24 hours rest.

Ganguly won it, condemning Waugh's bowlers to a withering day in the field. It could have been worse. The first three Indian batsmen, all in the pink of form, got starts and then got out, including the mighty hitter Virender Sehwag for a blistering 72. Between lunch and tea the bowlers regained control and held the batsmen to only 53 runs in the session.

It might have been very much better, too. Australia continue to be surprised by India's athletic and aggressive running between the wickets. Sehwag's more restrained opening partner, Akash Chopra, was dropped at fourth slip by Simon Katich on eight; he batted another three hours and nothing else went near a fielder's hands all day. Brett Lee, Australia's slightly becalmed whirlwind, bowled a stack of no-balls.

And Tendulkar just hung in there. In five previous innings this series he had scored 82 runs without ever, by all accounts, exactly looking out of form.

Here he did not exactly look in form either, only occasionally unleashing strokes down the ground so sweetly timed that they were almost silent. But he stayed in, becoming the fourth man in history, after Sunil Gavaskar, Allan Border and Waugh himself, to score 9,000 Test runs.

Only the Australian bowlers' sheer dog-tiredness will have stopped them waking at 3 a.m. having just heard Tony Greig scream, "And there's his triple century!" into the microphone of their nightmare.

England would never have dared to come into a Test with an attack as vulnerable as Australia's. Jason Gillespie is not 100 per cent fit, though he performed staunchly; Lee is out of form, though he pitched the ball up sensibly and could easily have had three wickets before lunch; the tall left-armer Nathan Bracken is inexperienced, though his high trajectory action might cause havoc in England come 2005.

Much of the Indian stroke play was magnificent and would have delighted a non-partisan crowd. But the 45,000 thronging this magnificent arena had come to watch Waugh.

They could watch him all day but the entertainment value of seeing someone stand at mid-off for the thick end of seven hours issuing occasional instructions - broken only by two overs he bowled himself - does pall after a while.

Guardian Service

INDIA First innings

A Chopra b Lee 45

V Sehwag c Gilchrist b Gillespie 72

R Dravid lbw b Gillespie 38

S R Tendulkar not out 73

V V S Laxman not out 29

Extras b4 lb2 w2 nb19 pens 0 27

Total 3 wkts (90 overs) ... 284

Fall: 1-123 2-128 3-194 To Bat: S C Ganguly, P A Patel, A B Agarkar, A Kumble, M Kartik, I K Pathan.

Bowling: Lee 21 3 80 1 Gillespie 23 7 51 2; Bracken 23 9 60 0; MacGill 18 3 65 0; Waugh 2 0 6 0; Katich 2 0 13 0; Martyn 1 0 3 0.