Can Tendulkar save India after Clarke triple hundred?

ALL EYES will be on the increasingly troubled Sachin Tendulkar later today as the Little Master takes the crease at the Sydney Cricket Ground on 8 not out after yesterday’s session, with India staring down the barrel of another Test defeat at the hands of a rollicking Australia.

The Indians are on 114 for two, putting them 354 behind Australia. Now more than ever the tourists need their greatest ever run scorer to shake off the drought that has plagued him since reaching a seemingly jinxed 99th century last March.  
 
Assailing Australia’s total of 659 for four requires one of the great cricketing comebacks. Only if Tendulkar rediscovers his imperious best can India stand any chance of recovery.
 
Headlines after yesterday’s play would, under normal circumstances, have belonged to Australian batsmen Ricky Ponting, who put in a well worked 134, and Mike Hussey, who recorded 150 not out.
 
But Australia’s captain, Michael Clarke, made certain these were anything but normal circumstances. After first displaying magnificent verve with the bat to record 329 not out, Clarke then showed utter selflessness in retiring short of various batting records to ensure his side had seven sessions to bowl out a shell-shocked India.

Tendulkar will probably avert his eyes from the SCG’s scoreboard when he troops out to the wicket, but were he to look up, he would find some cause for inspiration. For Clarke himself has been in Tendulkar’s position. The Aussie captain was dropped from the Test side in late 2005 after he had failed to make a century for over a year, an unwanted milestone Tendulkar is fast approaching. ·