Familiar failings haunt India on day 1 at Adelaide

Another beginning to an overseas tour and another collapse from the Indian top-order. This phenomenon is happening far too frequently for the fans or the management's liking. The most disappointing fact about this routine of Indian batting is the fact that they end up scoring under par totals on good batting wickets, which leads them to play the catch-up game on the entire tour.

Making mistakes is part and parcel of cricket, but, if you are repeating your mistakes then it is a cause of worry and the Indian batting is doing just that. What makes it worse is the fact that batsmen are getting out in the same manner, which implies that there is no application on their part.

The ongoing Adelaide Test has begun in the same old fashion- openers repeating their mistakes and getting out early, either Pujara or Kohli weathering the storm, middle-order looking porous with Rahane looking out of sorts.

The Adelaide wicket was hardly menacing. While there was some slight seam movement early on, but, nothing alarming. This initial phase could have been easily negotiated with a bit of application which was again missing as most of the wickets were a result of mistakes by the batsmen.

After the new ball lost its shine, the pitch is looking good for batting which means that India might have to play the catch-up game for the rest of the game due to the top order collapse in the first innings. The pitch seems to have some help for the spinners, which means that Ashwin will be in the game throughout, but, he will have to be patient for his wickets and for that he would need something to bowl at.

The average first innings total in the last few years in Adelaide is more than 400, which India are a long way away from. Though the current wicket is a bit on the slower side, 250 is still an under par score here.

300 seems to be a fighting total on this wicket, which is still some distance sway considering that India has just one wicket in the bank. Although the Australian batting line-up is far from the best in the world, a score under 300 will mean that India will once again find it difficult to give themselves a winning start to a tour where they were the favorites, to begin with.