Australia vs India 2014-15, 1st Test: Takeaways for India at the end of day one

India conceded 354/6 at the end of day one of the first Test

The much anticipated 4-match Test series between Australia and India for the Border-Gavaskar trophy started off at the Adelaide Oval today, with both sides looking to make amends after mustering unconvincing displays on their previous Test assignments in the UAE and England, respectively.

In Australia’s case, Phillip Hughes’ untimely and unfortunate death had taken a toll on the mindset of the players, especially Michael Clarke and David Warner, who subsequently have had to contend with umpteen things heading into this first Test.

And at the end of first day’s play at the Adelaide Oval, Australia and Michael Clarke would be happy with the professionalism they showed in taking advantage of the good batting conditions and helping themselves to a reasonable position, which could have been much better had they not lost Mitchell Marsh and Brad Haddin late in the day, to go with the wicket of Nathan Lyon, the night-watchman. Here are a few talking points and takeaways from day one of the first Test between Australia and India.

India’s maverick team selection and toss

It wasn’t unexpected of Virat Kohli to come up with a couple of surprises as the standby Indian captain, owing to his personality and the way he plays his cricket — hard, aggressive, wanting to dominate his opponents, boastful, so on and so forth. But no one could have imagined the Delhi dasher handing a Test debut to Karn Sharma, the Railways and Sunrisers Hyderabad leg spinner, in the all-important first Test of the series.

Fair enough, Australia are loaded with right-handers, with the trio of Chris Rogers, David Warner and Mitchell Johnson being the only left-handers in the hosts’ XI, vindicating the logic behind selecting the wrist spinner.

But overlooking Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja - who, by the way, have been India’s lead spinners (home and away) in the last 18 months - was audacity at its extreme. It should, however, not go unmentioned that Karn had done extremely well in India’s two tour games, which saw him put up impressive bowling figures of 25.5-7-87-5 and also make a quick-fire half-century with the bat in the first tour game.

The debutant, expectedly, was nervous and apprehensive early on in his bowling spell, failing to land the majority of his deliveries in the first couple of overs. He, however, redeemed himself to persevere on a wicket that hardly rendered any purchase to him or any other Indian bowler.

His perseverance wouldn’t prove profligate, though, as Karn bagged the prized scalp of Warner, who, until then, was feasting on India’s insipid bowling display, before holding out to deep mid-wicket, as he attempted to deposit the leggie into the stands.

Karn, when he looks back on his first day in Test cricket, would be content with what he managed, considering the circumstances he had to do it in.

Coming to the toss, it was a crucial one for either team, with the pitch looking conducive to bat on and no palpable demons in it. Kohli called for heads, it came down as tails, however, and Clarke, zestfully, opted to bat first. There was no lateral movement in the air or off the seam throughout the day’s play, as Australia, piloted by Warner’s 145 off 163 balls, piled on the runs and, with it, misery for the Indian bowlers.

An unimpressive display by the Indian bowlers

Without counting today, Team India have been in Australia for 16 days, have played in a couple of tour games, which by all means should have been enough to get acclimatized to the prevalent conditions and recognize the lines and lengths they had to produce, even on the first day of the 4-match Test series.

However, it was the same old story for the Indian bowlers and the Indian side, as they struggled to be on the money on the first morning of a long Test series. Barring Mohammed Shami’s first over and Ishant Sharma’s exemplary bowling display throughout the day, Indian bowlers couldn’t trouble the Australian batsmen (until very late in the day, that is), and neither could they keep a lid on the scoring rate, which hovered around the 4.5 runs per over mark for much of the day.

Either it was too much attention to detail or just ridiculous inflexibility on the part of India’s bowling strategy, as they kept coming around the wicket to Warner, who merrily kept smacking and pulverizing Varun Aaron and Shami over the cover and point region. Ishant, with his tendency to angle the ball in and get it to leave the right-hander from around the wicket, was given due respect by the diminutive southpaw, who otherwise was in irrepressible mood until he was dismissed in the final session of the day’s play.

Indian bowlers, especially Aaron and Shami, were shy of bowling a consistent line and length, as they sprayed their deliveries all over the pitch and aided the Australian batsmen in scoring quick runs.

The length wasn’t ideal either; Shami started off bowling full, but once he realized that there was no swing on offer for him, he pulled his length back and couldn’t find the right length to bowl on Australian surfaces. Aaron could be given the benefit of the doubt for bowling short of a length as it’s his natural length and thrives on hitting the deck hard.

The Jharkhand pacer was erratic nonetheless, as he failed to stick to a settled line, let alone the right length, on this surface.

Where do India go from here, in this Test match?

Earlier in the day, Clarke, who was batting well on 60, retired hurt after his chronic back problems came back to haunt him again, and he simply couldn’t continue with his innings. The scorecard read 2-206 when Clarke walked back to the dressing room, and India probably had a chance to get back into the game, although the man walking in to replace the skipper was the in-form Steve Smith.

Smith combined with Warner in a 52-run stand for the third wicket, and followed it up with another substantial partnership of 87 with Marsh (41) for the fourth wicket, to propel Australia to 354/6 at the end of the day’s play.

The second new ball did the trick for India who, thanks to Aaron and Shami’s resurgence very late in the day, have somehow kept themselves in the game going into day 2 with the double strike of Lyon and Haddin, both of whom got out to Shami.

With Smith remaining unbeaten at stumps on day one and the likes of Mitchell Johnson and Peter Siddle — who can be very useful with the bat lower down the order — still to bat, Australia might still fancy their chances of getting to 450 or thereabouts. Consequently, it should be an intriguing morning session on day 2.

The implications of the playing surface are that it is benign, batsmen-friendly and conducive to score runs on at a fair clip. However, there were a good number of deliveries that kept low, and hardly carried to Wriddhiman Saha, prompting a few doubts in the minds of the Indian batsmen, who will no doubt have their task cut out when they go out to bat against Johnson and Ryan Harris sometime tomorrow.

Again, the onus will be on the Indian bowlers to bulldoze the Australian lower order, ensuring that they don’t let them off the hook, after all the good work that’s been done at the fag end of the day’s play.