Bengaluru, Oct 13: Cheteshwar Pujara and Sachin Tendulkar made impressive contributions as India beat Australia by seven wickets in the second and last Test of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy being played in the Garden City.

Set a target of 207 runs to chase, the Indian innings started an hour into the first session on Day 5. Virender Sehwag (7) was the first to be dismissed, edging a Ben Hilfenhaus delivery to wicketkeeper Tim Paine. At 17 for 1 a fourth innings collapse, like in the previous Test, seemed imminent, when in a dramatic reshuffle of the batting order Cheteshwar Pujara walked out as No. 3 ahead of the veteran Rahul Dravid.

Far from displaying any nerves, the young duo of Pujara and Murali Vijay batted fluently. The Aussie fielders were run ragged as singles were stolen where none existed and twos were converted into threes by the young Indian pair. Pujara was the more impressive of the two as he stepped out repeatedly to Nathan Hauritz and drove him effortlessly on a couple of occasions to the boundary for four.

Unable to find a breakthrough, Ricky Ponting turned to Shane Watson who immediately had Vijay (37) trapped LBW. Sachin Tendulkar walked out at the fall of Vijay’s wicket and looked absolutely in control in what was a tense moment or two for Indian fans. He was stoic in defense, offering the full face of his bat to each delivery that came his way.

Pujara, meanwhile, continued to impress. When Watson tried to ruffle him with the short stuff, he brought out the pull short with great authority. His stay at the crease was absolutely chanceless and the only time that he was beaten, he found himself walking back to the pavilion, clean bowled by a Hauritz delivery that straightened after pitching. His knock of 72 left India within touching distance of victory (only 61 runs required with 7 wickets in hand) and not since Rahul Dravid made his debut in 1996 has an Indian youngster looked so compact and technically correct while batting.

Dravid finally came out to bat at No. 4 and looked far more settled than in the first innings. The old guard of Tendulkar and Dravid snuffed out any probability of an Aussie fight-back. Tendulkar launched himself into Hauritz at the end, bludgeoning the off-spinner for two big sixes over the deep mid-wicket boundary and then hitting him for a couple of fours to the square boundary on either side of the wicket to bring up his half century. It was only appropriate that in a match where India’s fortunes were so heavily decided by Tendulkar’s first innings double century, the winning runs came off the master’s bat after he cheekily paddle swept Hauritz to fine leg.

Earlier in the day, the Indian pace men – Zaheer Khan and S Sreesanth – bowled exceedingly well, swinging the ball at will, to get rid of the Australian tail in no time. Mitchell Johnson was castled over by Khan, while Hilfenhaus too was bowled by Sreesanth. Khan then let loose a short ball only for Peter George to glove it into the hands of wicketkeeper Dhoni. From an overnight score of 202 for 7 Australia, were dismissed for 223.

Brief Scores –

India 495 (Sachin Tendulkar 214, Mitchell Johnson 3-105) and 207 for 3 (Cheteshwar Pujara 72, Sachin Tendulkar 53*) beat Australia 478 (Marcus North 128, Harbhajan Singh 4-148) and 223 (Ricky Ponting 72, Zaheer Khan 3-41) by 7 wickets

Man-of-the-Match – Sachin Tendulkar for his match winning scores of 214 and 53* that set up a seven-wicket win for India

Man-of-the-Series – Sachin Tendulkar for having amassed a staggering 403 runs in two Tests at an average of 134.33 runs per innings.