Bangalore: A record fifth wicket partnership of 300 runs between Sourav Ganguly and Yuvraj Singh helped India finish on an impressive 365-5 on the opening day of the third and final Test against Pakistan at the Chinnaswamy Stadium here on Saturday.
Coming in when the Indian innings was in a shambles at 61-4, the two southpaws mixed caution with aggression during their 393-ball association which lasted 252 minutes, the duo took the team to a stable position.
Ganguly and Yuvraj surpassed the previous best stand for the fifth wicket against Pakistan, of 200 between Ravi Shastri and Sandeep Patil at Faisalabad in 1984-85.
Yuvraj, the more dominating of the two, scored his highest Test score of 169 before he was caught by Faisal Iqbal off Mohammad Sami. The Punjab batsman slammed 28 boundaries and a six off 203 balls.
The master (Ganguly) let his pupil (Yuvraj) take centre-stage as the youngster was in a murderous mood and dominated the proceedings with some immaculate shots to all corners of the park.
Yuvraj completed his third Test century when he cover drove Yasir Arafat for his 18th boundary after facing 137 balls. Earlier in the over he had stylishly square cut the bowler to the third man fence.
He took the fight to the enemy’s camp with a series of blistering drives and cuts. He was particularly severe on Mohammad Sami, who was gave him too much width.
Ganguly, who completed his second consecutive hundred with a cover-driven four off Yasir Hameed, was going strong on 125 with 24 hits to the fence, while Dinesh Karthik (three) was the other not out batsman at stumps as India notched up the highest first day score at Bangalore.
Even as Yuvraj dominated proceedings, Ganguly grew in confidence and matched Yuvraj in elegance and poise. Ganguly, who took time to build his innings, then took over from Yuvraj and attacked the Pakistan bowling quite effectively.
Like Yuvraj, Ganguly’s century too was studded with 18 hits to the fence.
Earlier, Arafat struck thrice to leave India gasping in the first session. Replacing Shoaib Akhtar as one change bowler, Arafat, scalped the prize wickets of former Indian captain Rahul Dravid (19), Wasim Jaffer (17) and Laxman (five) in his inspiring first spell in Test cricket.
Arafat had Dravid caught in the slips, trapped last match’s double-centurion Jaffer lbw and then bowled Laxman with a delivery that kept low.
In fact, the hosts had their share of luck when Jaffer was dropped in the gully by Sami off Shoaib Akhtar when on two with the Indian score reading six for no loss.
Sami however, made amends soon after when he had Gautam Gambhir caught by wicketkeeper Kamran Akmal for five to reduce India to eight for one. This was his first wicket of the series as he had gone wicket-less in the earlier matches at Delhi and Kolkata.
Earlier, Indian skipper Anil Kumble elected to bat first.
Injury-hit India are without the services of Sachin Tendulkar (knee injury), Mahendra Singh Dhoni (ankle injury and tear in the webbing of his left hand) and the two new ball bowlers – Zaheer Khan and Munaf Patel – who played in the drawn second Test match at Kolkata.
After a long wait Yuvraj and Delhi opener Gambhir have been drafted in place of Tendulkar and Dhoni while Irfan Pathan and Ishant Sharma have come in place of Zaheer Khan and Munaf Patel respectively.
The visitors made one change bringing in all-rounder Yasir Arafat for left arm pace man Sohail Tanvir. Arafat has played in seven ODIs earlier to this Test match.
This will also be the 100th international match for former Sri Lankan batsman Ranjan Madugalle as the Match Referee of the International Cricket Council (ICC). Mudugalle was honoured with a memento by the Karnataka State Cricket Association (KSCA) president Srikanta Dutta Vodiyar during lunch interval.
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