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The Second Test in the Indian cricket team's tour of Australia for the 2007–08 summer was a controversial Test cricket match played over five days at the Sydney Cricket Ground from 2 to 6 January 2008. Australia won the match by 122 runs with minutes to spare at the end of the fifth day. The match attained notoriety owing to the number of umpiring mistakes made by international umpires Steve Bucknor and Mark Benson and accusations of poor sportsmanship against both teams. The match ended in a dramatic defeat of the Indian team in the final ten minutes of the five-day match, with some commentators suggesting that the umpiring mistakes had a major impact on the course of the match. The result ensured that Australia retained the Border–Gavaskar Trophy, as well as taking Ricky Ponting's team to 16 consecutive Test wins, equalling the previous Test record, also held by Australia under Steve Waugh. The controversy was termed by parts of the media as ''Bollyline'', a reference to the 1930s controversy Bodyline. The name, a portmanteau of Bodyline and Bollywood, is tongue in cheek, but by referencing Bodyline, hints at the potential seriousness of the rift between the Indians and Australians. Indeed, according to Steve Waugh, the affair "now has the potential to affect relations between the countries".〔 The Test itself was tightly contested, setting up a fifth (final) day in which the match could have been won by either team, but was most likely to be drawn. The match featured centuries by batsmen on every day of the match. Three four-wicket hauls were achieved and Brett Lee achieved a five-wicket haul in the first innings. Both Anil Kumble and Michael Clarke were, at individual points in the game, on a hat-trick. All-rounder Andrew Symonds was at the centre of much of the action, achieving 162 * and 61 with the bat and taking 3/51 in India's second innings. Symonds was awarded man of the match. Controversies abounded; as well as the multiple umpiring incidents that were placed in the spotlight by the narrowness of the victory, Indian spinner Harbhajan Singh was charged with racial abuse in an altercation with Andrew Symonds. Harbhajan was banned by the match referee Mike Procter for three Test matches although the charges were downgraded on 29 January 2008 to the lesser charge of using abusive language and the ban was lifted. The Indian team had earlier protested and threatened to pull out of the tour. The match produced bitterness on both sides and an announcement by the Indian team that they would abandon their tour, followed by dramatic intervention by the International Cricket Council (ICC). ==Context== Australia had won the first Test played the previous week at the Melbourne Cricket Ground by a margin of 337 runs, needing only four days to secure victory. Australia were seeking a 16th consecutive Test win to equal the record set by Steve Waugh's team between late-1999 and early-2001. The first match had led to media consternation about the appropriateness of India's batting strategy. Rahul Dravid had been promoted up the batting order from number three to open along with Wasim Jaffer, while regular opener Dinesh Karthik was dropped prior to the first Test. This was done to create a middle-order vacancy for Yuvraj Singh, who had scored a century in India's previous Test, when he substituted for the injured Sachin Tendulkar. During the first Test, both Dravid and Jaffer failed to pass 20 in either innings, with the former attracting attention for his particularly slow and defensive approach. This allowed the Australian bowling to assert control over the Indian batsmen from the outset and prevent them from gaining the momentum at the outset. Yuvraj also failed; he was particularly fidgety in scoring 0 and 5. The failures of the rearranged line-up prompted calls for the return of Virender Sehwag, who had been taken on tour as the reserve opener. Sehwag had been dropped from the side in early-2007 and had been unproductive in recent Ranji Trophy matches in India; however, his extremely aggressive approach had been successful against Australia in the past and cricket pundits felt that he could counter-attack the Australian bowlers, rather than letting their new ball attack seize the initiative. Jaffer, Dravid and Yuvraj were all mooted as possible omissions to make way for Sehwag. Australia fielded an unchanged XI, whereas India made one change: the injured Zaheer Khan was replaced by fellow paceman Ishant Sharma, a 19-year-old playing in his third Test match. The match was preceded by speculation as to how attractive the play would be. The first Test was played on a pitch that was slow and somewhat irregular in behaviour, and the commentators were optimistic that the second Test would lead to more attractive batting, particularly from the Indians, who had amassed 7/705 and 2/211 in their previous outing in 2003–04. Tendulkar (148 * in 1991–92, 241 * in 2003–04) and V. V. S. Laxman (167 in 1999–2000, 178 in 2003–04) had both scored much-lauded Test centuries at the ground. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Second Test, 2007–08 Border–Gavaskar Trophy」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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