India totally outplayed Australia in Canberra, winning this 'wooden spoon ' Test match inside 4 days.
The pitch was good for batting but Australia struggled on day 1 as India's quicks exploited favourable overhead conditions. Srinath and Ishant took 3 wickets apiece as the home team struggled to 254 all out.
India's batsmen took control on days 2 and 3, their dominance built on a 3rd wicket partnership of 272 between captain Ganguly (137) and Rahul Dravid (186). The latter had been man of the match against England and continued his good form with a superb study in batting technique and application.
Facing a 1st innings deficit of 198, Australia collapsed to 61-6 on the 4th morning and were only raised to respectability by a typically swashbuckling 80 from Gilchrist.
Ganguly's team deserved this 9 wicket success. Although they were not progressing in this competition, they had world class performers like man of the match Dravid who would have graced future matches.
Australia 2000s: J Langer, ML Hayden, MEK Hussey, RT Ponting (c), SM Katich, A Symonds, AC Gilchrist (wk), B Lee, SCG MacGill, JN Gillespie, GD McGrath
India 2000s: V Sehwag, RS Dravid, SC Ganguly (c), VVS Laxman, MS Dhoni (wk), AB Agarkar, J Srinath, Harbhajan Singh, Ishant Sharma, Zaheer Khan
Australia 2000s 1st Innings 254-10 (87.3 Ov)
RT Ponting 61, AC Gilchrist 51, SM Katich 34, J Srinath 3-31, Ishant Sharma 3-75, Zaheer Khan 2-41
India 2000s 1st Innings 452-8 (148 Ov)
RS Dravid 186, SC Ganguly 137, V Sehwag 34, B Lee 2-72, GD McGrath 2-80
Australia 2000s 2nd Innings 219-10 (66 Ov)
AC Gilchrist 80, B Lee 41, ML Hayden 26, J Srinath 3-21, Zaheer Khan 3-50, Ishant Sharma 2-42
India 2000s 2nd Innings 22-1 (7 Ov)
India 2000s won by 9 wickets
Man of the Match: RS Dravid
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