Australia picked up the wickets of Sachin Tendulkar and Yuvraj Singh to reduce the pressure of a rapid start provided by Virender Sehwag, leaving the game intriguingly placed at the half-way stage of the chase in Mohali.
The first decisive moment came when Ricky Ponting introduced spin in the 17th over. Nathan Hauritz stuck in his second over, getting a favourable lbw decision against Tendulkar but the ball appeared to be missing leg stump. The second blow occurred in the 24th over when Ponting fired in a direct hit from cover to run out Yuvraj.
There were only three singles in the first seven overs as Sehwag launched into a stunning assault, scoring all his 30 runs from 14 deliveries of Mitchell Johnson. He whiplashed a square drive, flicked through midwicket, flashed past point and played a skilful upper-cut over slips but the shot of the session was a stunning on-the-up punch to the left of short extra cover. However, he didn't capitalize on the start and fell, trying to clear mid-off against Doug Bollinger.
Like Sehwag, Tendulkar wasn't keen on taking singles and faced most of Peter Siddle's spell. Barring the third ODI, where the pitch demanded them to bowl straighter, Australia have been pitching full and well outside off stump to Tendulkar, who fell twice to such deliveries while driving away from the body. Today, he was patient and waited for the straighter ball before he went for his off-drives. Siddle slipped up on only two occasions: the first one was a short and wide delivery which was cut, and the second was a full delivery around off stump which was driven through covers. Johnson, in his second spell, and Moises Henriques weren't as tight as Siddle, and Tendulkar capitalised, collecting boundaries with flicks and pull shots.
Bollinger was as disciplined as Siddle, mixing in a few slow cutters with his length deliveries, and picked up two wickets. They weren't genuine wicket-taking balls - a full delivery took out Sehwag and a short and wide one took care of Virat Kohli - but he had induced those mistakes by applying pressure with his discipline.
soruce: cricinfo & bbcsports
Runs | Balls | 4s | 6s | |||
| S Watson | c Dhoni | b Harbhajan | 49 | 52 | 6 | 0 |
| Marsh | lbw | b Nehra | 5 | 23 | 0 | 0 |
| Ponting | run out | 52 | 59 | 5 | 1 | |
| C White | run out | 62 | 71 | 3 | 1 | |
| M Hussey | c I Sharma | b Yuvraj | 40 | 41 | 2 | 1 |
| Henriques | st Dhoni | b Harbhajan | 6 | 13 | 0 | 0 |
| M Johnson | b Nehra | 8 | 15 | 0 | 0 | |
| Manou | run out | 7 | 6 | 0 | 0 | |
| Hauritz | not out | 9 | 11 | 0 | 0 | |
| Siddle | c Jadeja | b Nehra | 1 | 5 | 0 | 0 |
| Bollinger | run out | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | |
| Extras | 1nb 9w 1lb | 11 | ||||
| Total | all out | 250 | (49.2 ovs) | |||
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Runs | Balls | 4s | 6s | |||
| Sehwag | c S Watson | b Bollinger | 30 | 19 | 7 | 0 |
| Tendulkar | lbw | b Hauritz | 40 | 68 | 6 | 0 |
| Kohli | c Manou | b Bollinger | 10 | 16 | 1 | 0 |
| Yuvraj | run out | 12 | 21 | 0 | 0 | |
| Dhoni | c Manou | b Bollinger | 26 | 46 | 2 | 0 |
| Raina | b Hauritz | 17 | 30 | 0 | 0 | |
| Jadeja | run out | 7 | 21 | 1 | 0 | |
| Harbhajan | c and b | S Watson | 31 | 25 | 5 | 1 |
| Kumar | c Manou | b S Watson | 16 | 19 | 3 | 0 |
| Nehra | c Hauritz | b S Watson | 7 | 8 | 1 | 0 |
| I Sharma | not out | 3 | 8 | 0 | 0 | |
| Extras | 1nb 20w 1b 5lb | 27 | ||||
| Total | all out | 226 | (46.4 ovs) | |||
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