Australia's second innings began weakly, with Langer edging Agarkar to Patel before he even opened his account. Australia were then at 6/1. A window of opportunity opened up for the Indians. However, their hopes were soon evaporated by Matthew Hayden's crescendo of explosive and dynamic strokeplay. He hit the ball savagely, transferring his weight to the back foot often, and displayed clean and strong hits which sent the ball crashing to the fence. His powerful strokeplay ended in him stroking 99 from 98 balls. He reached 99 with a huge six off Ashish Nehra. The Queensland fans and the hayden family cheered and backed Hayden up to the hilt screaming out cheers to him, but he missed out the century when he top-edged a sweep to Sehwag at midwicket off Harbhajan. Hayden's knock was remarkable for the utter disdain he treated the Indian bowlers with. He was impervious to the efforts of the Indian bowlers, which was shown by the fact that he managed to treat even the good balls contemptuously. Of the 98 balls he faced for his 99, 51 balls were good length deliveries, which were dispatched for 52 runs. When the Indian bowlers pitched the ball slightly short, he was less destructive, hitting 12 runs off 30 such deliveries. In 17 other deliveries of which 8 were half-volleys and 9 were short balls Hayden hit 19 runs and 16 runs respectively, for a total of 35 runs from the other deliveries. He dominated almost every Indian bowler he faced, except Ajit Agarkar by scoring runs at more than a run-a-ball rate.