Siddle chooses Hilfenhaus for special praise

Melbourne: The Australian media has hailed new pace sensation James Pattinson after their win in the first Test here but Peter Siddle says it was his pace colleague Ben Hilfenhaus, who actually set up India`s downfall.

Hilfenhaus took a career-best 5-75 in the first innings and returned with figures of 2-39 in the second essay to mark an impressive comeback in the Australian Test team. Siddle reckons that Hilfenhuas may not have taken much wickets in the second innings but he put Indian batsmen under tremendous pressure with his fiery spell and that helped him and Pattinson to wreak havoc. "The way he (Hilfenhaus) came and played to get his first five-for was outstanding. It has always been a key to his game, but just his consistency with his lines and the pressure he builds from that one end was obviously amazing," Siddle said. "He always gets the hard jobs, but the effort pushing up into that breeze the whole match, and building the pressure from that end, it did help me and Jimmy (Pattinson) from the other end," he said. Siddle also defended unimpressive off-spinner Nathan Lyon, who could take just one wicket in the entire match. "The MCG in the past couple of years hasn`t been the best spin wicket. So it is hard work, but I think he (Lyon) did his role. He did what he had to do. He came on, he tied it up at times, and he bowled attacking at other times," he said. Asked about the six, Sachin Tendulkar hit off him over the third man in the first ball after tea on Tuesday, Siddle said, "The edge over slips? You come out, and first ball you want to try and bowl a short ball and get up him a bit, and he gets away an edge, as I said, over slips." "But seriously folks. You can`t do much about it. Obviously he`s a great player. He`s going to play good shots like that and some days it will come off and some days he might edge it through to the keeper. Sadly, it went over the fence for six." PTI