Adelaide: Opener Murali Vijay and skipper Virat Kohli looked confident against some testing off-breaks from Nathan Lyon as India reached 105 for two at lunch in pursuit of victory target of 364 against Australia in the first cricket Test, here Saturday.
At the break, Vijay batting on 47 is looking good for his second half-century of the match while first innings centurion Kohli also looked at ease during his unbeaten knock of 25 off 37 balls.
India need another 259 runs in the remaining 64 overs to win the Test while Australia need to pick up the remaining eight wickets.
For Australia, Nathan Lyon (1-48) and Mitchell Johnson (1-12) were the two wicket-takers.
Lyon in particular looked threatening as he got the ball to turn pitching it in the rough areas.
Ryan Harris (0-24), Peter Siddle (0-11), Shane Watson (0-6) and Steve Smith (0-2) were the other bowlers tried out by Michael Clarke.
Shikhar Dhawan (9) and Vijay took guard on this vital day of the Test series. India haven't had a 50-run stand overseas from their openers since 2011 and they were hoping that today would be the day to improve that record.
But it was not to be as Dhawan got a rough decision from umpire Ian Gould with a short delivery from Johnson ballooning off his shoulders before Brad Haddin caught it behind the stumps.
While the left-hander was obviously disappointed, Vijay had a life granted to him when later in the 16th over, against Lyon, he padded up to a delivery that spun sharply.
He should have been adjudged out leg before but umpire Marais Erasmus thought otherwise. Vijay was on 24 then and prior to that had hit Lyon for a big six and brought up team's 50 in company of Cheteshwar Pujara (21).
