Australia vs India 2018-19: First Test, Day 3: 5 Talking Points

#2 Rahul, Vijay learning from their errors in the first innings

Indian openers KL Rahul and Murali Vijay fell for 2 and 11 runs respectively, in the first innings, and within 7 overs, India were 15/2, after which they continued to slump. Had it not been for Pujara with ample help from Rohit, Pant, Ashwin, Ishant and Shami, India would have fallen much earlier than the 250 they scored.

Both Rahul and Vijay, as were the case of a few batsmen that followed, threw their wickets away while attempting to drive Aussie pacers who were constantly pelting balls that moved wide off off-stump - the drives were not there, to begin with, and both of them easily fell into those traps, edging the ball to behind the wickets.

As they were put in to bat for a second time, all this must have crossed their minds. While Hazlewood, Cummins and Starc continued to aim the line outside off stump, inviting the duo to play towards it, we saw a shift of approach by Rahul and Vijay. The both of them stuck to tucking away the balls that came straight at them and blocking the ones that dipped inwards - occasionally offering a shot as well - everything but dealing with the Australian Honeytraps.

They deservedly got their rewards later on, Rahul in particular, as the ball got old enough and lost its swing. Boundaries started coming in, and there was even an over where he played an audacious lofted drive over extra cover that went bang for six, followed by a four towards nearly the same space, just two balls later.

Shortly afterwards, the partnership also completed 50 runs, their first 50-run partnership outside of home conditions.