Australia vs India, 4th Test Day 1: Five Talking Points

Visitors India ended the first Test-playing day of the New Year on a high note, holding fort against hosts Australia in solid fashion. The side compiled 303 runs on the board as four wickets fell, by the time Day 1's play of the fourth Domain Australia-India Test match ended earlier today at the Sydney Cricket Ground.

For the first time ever, India entered into the game with chances of sealing off a series win, having won two out of the three matches played so far. The series tally now reading 2-1 in favour of the Men in Blue, all that is needed for Virat Kohli and co. to take home the Border-Gavaskar trophy, is a draw at Sydney.

Over the past one month and more, luck has predominantly been on Kohli's side as a skipper, as he won yet another toss. It was a good toss to win, and he immediately took the no-brainer choice to bat first. The pitch has been predicted to induce turn late in the game, and naturally, batting first and third was hence going to be easier compared to chasing.

Let us now take a peek into the key points of discussion that can be drawn from today's play - where, as mentioned earlier, Indian batsmen dominated against Aussie bowlers.

#1 Cheteshwar Pujara at the core of India's batting success - once again

The Wall

The Saurashtra-based batting stalwart Pujara is indeed having the dearest time of his life. He is already the top-scorer of the series so far, having eclipsed the likes of Virat Kohli much earlier, and leaving them farther behind with each innings.

Pujara now has 458* runs from 7 innings, while second-placer Kohli is at 282 only, and others are even further below. That shows how Pujara is playing in a different league altogether, right now.

He came in at a tricky situation when India had just lost their opener, KL Rahul, while fairly-inexperienced Mayank Agarwal was at the other end of the crease. Alongside Mayank, Pujara forged a 116-run stand, after which he made 54 and 48 runs with Kohli and Rahane respectively. Even as his partners departed one-by-one, Pujara did not lose his verve, going on to notch his 18th ton in the format - also his third in the ongoing series.

He also batted at a strike-rate better than all of the previous occasions in the series, and that turn gave India a well-deserved 300, right on the first day itself.

At Stumps, Day 1, Pujara is currently involved in an 81-run unbeaten partnership with Hanuma Vihari. In the upcoming second day, Pujara's run, that hopefully extends well into this game, could be the singular deciding factor of the game - and thereby the series as well.

Quite coincidentally - India has won all matches where they have batted first with Pujara claiming the three-figure mark for himself. High hopes, much?

#2 Mayank, Hanuma could be the next best finds for India; KL Rahul's woes continue

Mayank Agarwal

Murali Vijay's non-impressive stint in the middle with his bat, followed by Prithvi Shaw's injury - paved the way for someone to finally enter the foray of the Indian Cricket Team, after knocking on its doors for a long time. The person being talked about is Mayank Agarwal, one of India's most consistent domestic batsmen of recent years.

Agarwal has since made 195 runs across 3 innings, and is the fifth-best scorer in the series so far, behind Pujara, Kohli, Travis Head and Rahane. His maiden innings was a memorable 76 in the last game, which he has now followed up with the 77 he made earlier today. During the 112-ball innings, he smashed seven hits past the fence and two over it, and also featured in a century partnership with Pujara, after the other opener KL Rahul fell in the very second over.

Agarwal showed how he had the talent and skill to stay put in the side, and will clearly be a huge factor for India in future competitions.

Another person worth mentioning here is Hanuma Vihari, who joined Pujara when India were looking right at a potential tumble-down, at 228/4. Vihari played his shots with immaculate timing which only bettered as the day grew older.

In the later stages of the day, he even assumed most of the charge himself and made sure that his side retired for the day suffering no further damage.

An ideal anchor-man, Vihari could be the long-term solution to India's lower-middle order woes that have been burdening them for quite a while now. In the ongoing game right now, he is unbeaten on 39 off 58, with five fours to his name.

With Agarwal, Vihari, Prithvi Shaw and to an extent even Rohit Sharma staking their calls for the Test side, one person whose position within the first eleven is as wobbly as a broken chair, is KL Rahul. The Karnataka batsman who has the rare honour of having made international tons across all formats, is, however, a failure in the ongoing Test series, to put it plainly. Once again, Rahul fell to a very cheap shot right in the second over the day, despite having shown considerable intent in the two fours he played prior to dismissal.

Such repeated failures will never hold a strong case for Rahul, and he may as well be staring right at a temporary exit from the national team, right now.

#3 Virat Kohli's strange inconsistency

Virat Kohli

There is no debate to the statement that Virat Kohli is India's best batsman of modern times, if not of all time. Records and numbers are child's play for the Indian skipper, and so are scoring hundreds as Kohli rarely plays an innings that fails to catch the statistician's eyes.

But the man with the Midas touch cannot speak about his batting in the ongoing Australian series, with a similar tone of authority. Despite being the second best run-maker in the series behind Pujara himself, one could say that it is largely due to the inefficiency of the other players than the efficiency of his own.

As a matter of fact, check out his scores in the seven innings so far - 3, 34, 123, 17, 82, 0, 23. Zero not outs, two scores below five runs, five scores below 25 runs. The sole exceptions are the hundred he made in the second Test and the 82 from the last game. Take those away, and Kohli's contributions amount to 78 runs from five innings. Probably the lowest low that he has had since he began his golden run sometime around 2013.

The fans are left pondering over the factors that could be the reason for this "strange" phenomenon. There is no denying that he has been facing some back niggles over the past couple of weeks, but as viewers, we are forced to turn down that as a suggestion to his current problem, given his pattern of dismissals.

Four out of seven times, Kohli fell prey to loose shots that maybe point fingers at a fall in concentration levels. In today's game as well, he attempted a needless shot at a ball that would have gone down the leg-side, the ball getting a lot of his glove in the process. The umpire needed no further inspiration to raise the finger as Tim Paine pocketed the catch behind the wickets.

Virat Kohli will definitely have to find out a ready solution to whatever is the cause for these lapses, as India's chances in the game irrespective of formats, still continue to loom large on the man from Delhi. With the World Cup and similar such important assignments in plain sight, it is imperative that he continues to remain in the best of touch.

#4 Aussie bowlers ineffective in landing the ball right, absolutely clueless against Pujara

Aussie bowling

The hosts have never really recovered from the sandpaper scandal that eventually became the proverbial iceberg to their Titanic, as big names Steven Smith and David Warner found themselves being barred from the international circuit. Since then, Australia have been accountable for solitary wins here and there, but never a series in its entirety, in what is their driest run ever in the 140-year-old history of the game.

All that being said, the Kangaroos are currently at their rock-bottom, trailing to India 1-2 in a home Test series. Never before have they lost a home Test series to the Asian frontrunners, and they are fighting hard to keep that record safe - only that this time, the fight is not up to much avail. While Smith and Warner's lack has opened a gaping void in Aussie batting, it has also exposed a weak Australian bowling unit which was once all-so glorious, in the presence of bowlers like Johnson and Siddle.

In the match today, Aussie pacers and the spinner Nathan Lyon - all of them produced disappointing spells which were initially highlighted by a barrage of ill-planned bouncers, followed by good-length deliveries as the ball aged, allowing Vihari and even Pujara on occasions, to leave their usual "protect" mode and start attacking.

Nathan Lyon would usually come to the rescue of the speedsters in case of any contingency, but even he could not do much today as Agarwal, Pujara and later Vihari played their roles only too well.

Rahul, Agarwal and Kohli literally threw away their wickets, while Rahane's dismissal also had a stroke of luck in it for the hosts. In summation, their bowlers missed out big time on any possible sense of purpose, like what was witnessed in the second game, for instance. A prolonged display of the same order would only spell trouble for them, and they may as well get ready to surrender the series to India already.

#5 Good toss to win for Team India

A very important toss

As mentioned in the introduction itself, the toss played a vital role in India's current position of authority in the game. Ahead of the match, pitch curators had spoken of how the surface was expected to help the turning ball in the later stages of the game, which indirectly means how spinners could possibly rule the roost on Days 3, 4 and 5. That had, in turn, forced Virat Kohli to sacrifice Umesh Yadav from his pace-bowling troika, so as to allow the inclusion of an additional spin-bowling resource in Kuldeep Yadav, into the starting eleven.

For that plan to work the best, it was necessary that India bat first and maybe post a good total, somewhere around the 450s just like at Melbourne. With everyone having done their part in planning, all eyes were now on the toss, which luckily, Kohli won - immediately opting to bat first, laying out the final move for the elaborate plan.

If the reader would have observed, Australian skipper Tim Paine had also agreed to Kohli's decision. "We would also have batted first, the grass cover makes it a batsmen-friendly wicket at first," were his exact words. Turns out that both captains were true in their instincts. India not only batted well, but they also managed to hold on to a majority of wickets as play now advances to Day 2 in a few hours. At 303/4, it is safe to say that India has the upper hand right now, thanks to the good toss they won.