World XI team bowler Muttiah Muralitharan from Sri Lanka dives to take a catch to dismiss Australia's Simon Katich (out of picture) for two runs during the third day of the Super Series Test match at the Sydney Cricket Ground yesterday. - REUTERS
SYDNEY, Australia, CMC:
A STUNNING Australian collapse from a position of almost absolute command gave the Rest of the World XI a glimmer of hope at the end of a truncated third day of the one-off "Super Test" at the Sydney Cricket Ground yesterday.
Cruising along at 152 for one in their second innings just before lunch, with first innings centurion Matthew Hayden and skipper Ricky Ponting well entrenched, the home team contrived to lose nine wickets for just 47 runs in being dismissed for 199 with two of England's Ashes heroes - Steve Harmison and Andrew Flintoff - along with Sri Lankan spinner Muttiah Muralitharan taking three wickets each.
Despite the unexpected capitulation, the World XI still faced a daunting target of 355 on an SCG pitch offering considerable assistance to the spinners.
The degree of difficulty in completing the task increased when openers Graeme Smith and Virender Sehwag were dismissed in the handful of overs allowed before the murky light of a heavily overcast day deteriorated even further and the third-wicket pair of Rahul Dravid and Brian Lara readily accepted the umpires' offer to leave the field for the final time.
They were set to resume the effort today morning (last night Caribbean time) at 25 for two.
Even allowing for an impressive batting order, Australia remained favourites to dismiss the opposition cheaply for a second time, especially in light of the havoc wreaked by wrist-spinners Stuart MacGill and Shane Warne in the visitors' first turn at the crease on Saturday.
Yet despite a miserable run in this Super Series, in which he had scratched together just 10 runs from four innings, many experts were again putting the focus on Lara as the man capable of producing a monumental innings that would give the World XI a fighting chance of victory to erase the memory of embarrassingly heavy defeats in the three one-dayers in Melbourne the previous week.
