TOPIC:

It is now official , India are cheating via their Board of Control meddling in pitch preparation to favour it's national side ahead of fairness

Makes these "glances to changeroom" allegations look decidedly hypocritical to say the least

India are a gutless spineless country with no moral ground at all , all thay do is steal designs from the british and make forgeries out of them , look at their equipment makers and the shallow copy of designs/brand names as an example

Cowards good for nothing cowards , keep piling up the runs India - keep failing overseas and more importantly keep being hated by the rest of the sporting world for being frauds

ill play devils advocate, is it cheating or playing to your strengths......

India don't want seeming wickets, they have no seam bowlers they want spinners.

That's no different to the Poms having seaming wickets,

The Kiwi's having wickets that suit their seam bowlers,

The South Africans playing on green decks or

The Sri Lankan's playing on turning wickets. Me thinks Australia needs to do better, by sharing our sporting grounds with AFL codes we are needing drop in pitches, and this makes for boring cricket.

While it was disappointing to lose the 2nd test it really was compelling viewing for any traditionalist that loves a good test match. Bring on game three I reckon, play it on a wicket that will bring a result, and if that brings the drama its better than watching a run fest that only gets results out of captains declaring.

Australia has won the toss and decided to bat. A good toss to win as you wouldn't want to bat last of that goat track.

This is a very valuable innings from Maxwell - very mature effort

These two have pretty much turned this on it's head - great partnership

Someone teach Maxwell how to bowl fast-mediums & we finally have our winner!

Southerner wrote: This is a very valuable innings from Maxwell - very mature effort

In hindsight we should have played The Big Show at 6 in all of the Tests, he's scored nearly double the amount of runs in 1 innings (not out) than MM scored in 4 digs!

Yes I was the same Anchorman, I didn't think Maxwell had the patience and technique to play an innings like that but he proved me and a lot of others wrong. It was a fantastic toss to win and every run in the first innings will be like gold. Smith was all class and if he can turn his 100 into a double tomorrow, they should be able to give 450 a shake which would then put scoreboard pressure on the Indian batsmen, especially with Kohli in some doubt ( having scans tonight apparently).

The pitch will be at its best for batting on days 1 and 2 so if the Aussies could bat for a big chunk of tommorrow's play this would expose the Indian batting line up on a (hopefully) crumbling pitch. It will be hard work for the bowlers though because there is no pace in the wicket and the batsmen have plenty of time to adjust to deliveries.

Will be interesting to see if Cummins can get anything from it......

I should have added how fine that captain's knock is in the whole scheme of it all - being accused of cheating several times , and as they are saying in the press , being attacked by an opposing captain & his 1.2 billion people army and to them come out without any anger & do that is outstanding really

This guy has played 53 tests & averages over 60 - that's brilliant

This partnership could be the series win

Hopefully S42 was watching Smith's innings to see how a class Australian sportsman handles himself in the heat of battle in one of the toughest environments imaginable (a touch hotter than 24 degrees that the tennis fraud quit playing in) for a sportsman!