Jason Gillespie ran in and let rip and the ball jagged back off the seam.

Sachin Tendulkar was stuck on the crease.

The ball thudded into his front pad and a nation gasped.

Tendulkar must have known straight away he was in trouble - that sickening feeling a batsman gets. With Gillespie screaming the house down in the form of an appeal, a bloody frightening sight, umpire Aleem Dar raised his finger.

Tendulkar was gone.

So was India.

Shane Warne took care of VVS Laxman for the third time this series, albeit from a shocker of a ball that landed short and wide and should have been sent to the fence, and Glenn McGrath took the important wickets of Rahul Dravid and Virender Sehwag to have Australia closing in on its first series win in India since 1969.

At stumps on day two of the third Test at the VCA Ground, India was 5-146, still 252 runs behind Australia's first innings of 398.

Gillespie has been an under-rated performer this trip.

With a mullet haircut he describes as "business at the front and a party at the back," he has bowled with relentless precision to make a number of key strikes. He dismissed Sourav Ganguly and Laxman at Chennai and picked up Aakash Chopra (nine) as well as Tendulkar (eight).

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