Three times on day one in Delhi, the Australians succeeded in quieting the gathered crowd at the Feroz Shah Kotla and giving the impression of controlling proceedings. Three times this proved to be a mirage.
On each occasion, India’s splendid spin bowlers replied not only by gaining a breakthrough, but by barrelling through a second touring batter before he had got his bearings.
Usman Khawaja walks off after he was dismissed by Ravindra Jadeja in Delhi.Credit:Getty Images
And on each occasion, Pat Cummins’ team sat back on their haunches in dismay. For although there was perceptible improvement in the Australian performance relative to their three-day demolition in Nagpur, at no stage were they able to wriggle completely free. For all those fleeting moments, this was not Australia’s day.
Across overs, hours and sessions, there was evidence of greater sharpness among Australia’s cricketers, not least in how their first innings was sustained almost as long as two combined in the first Test.
First, Usman Khawaja and Marnus Labuschagne got established after David Warner somehow survived long enough to put 50 on the board. Warner will get a second innings, but without the intent or capacity to put pressure back on the bowlers, he is looking squarely at the loss of his vital point of difference, and the twilight of his Test career.
It took a sublime piece of geometry from Ravichandran Ashwin, gaining enough drift from around the wicket to drag Labuschagne’s bat away and then enough bite to hit his front pad marginally in front of off stump, to win the lbw verdict that broke the stand on the cusp of lunch.
Labuschagne’s very human frustration at the fine margins of his dismissal was illustrated by the thud of his bat into the turf as the third umpire’s DRS verdict was returned. That emotion was supplanted by shock two balls later, when Ashwin used a slight variation in pace, length and seam position to coax the wisp of an outside edge from Steve Smith. A sound morning’s work felt instantly squandered.
After Travis Head belied a week of discussions about his play against spin by contriving to be dismissed by Mohammed Shami’s well-directed pace, Khawaja and Pete Handscomb scored freely in their contrasting styles.
Finally able to contribute to a Test series in India at the third time of asking a decade after his first visit, Khawaja swept, reversed, drove and flicked with panache, accompanied by the occasional helping of good fortune. After his narrow lbw dismissal on day on in Nagpur, this was deserved.
Handscomb was a little more sedate and a fair bit safer, backing his defence and scoring square on the off side with a crafty array of drives, cuts and deflections.
Five years after the most recent of his Test matches, Handscomb vindicated the selectors’ decision to keep him in mind for India. Slimly elegant, with features that would not have been out of place in pictures of the Australian teams of the 1930s, Handscomb’s method was more contemporary and unconventional, but the product of deep thought and no little skill.
Pete Handscomb on day one in Delhi.Credit:Getty
At 81, Khawaja was within reach of a meritorious century, and did not hesitate to reverse Ravindra Jadeja once more. Only this time, KL Rahul lurked in the point region, and his flying dive for the catch left Khawaja with nothing to do but bow his head in rueful contemplation of the moment missed. Rahul is currently scratchy with the bat, but in the field he is a world beater.
Ashwin’s tremendous control, carefully varying seam angle, pace and line on an immaculate length, is redolent of a 1990s computer programmer diligently typing in different lines of code until they find the combination that unlocks the desired result. When Ashwin finds his chosen parameters, the striker responds almost as involuntarily as the computer hardware once did.
Alex Carey certainly seemed hypnotised as Ashwin put visible effort into a ripping off-break that turned and reared for a slip catch. At the time, Australia still needed another 10 runs to surpass their day one tally in Nagpur.
Cummins and Handscomb, though, provided the third passage of calmness in partnership either side of tea. Cummins was notably more careful in defence, and when Ashwin looped up tempters he twice hoisted mightily for six.
The union was worth 59, as many as Handscomb and Khawaja had managed, when Cummins’ concentration broke just long enough for Jadeja to find his front pad. Todd Murphy’s exit, to an ambitious drive and an expansive turner a couple of balls later, extinguished any faint hope of 300.
So in all, Australia had done better, on what was admittedly a truer surface than Nagpur. But no partnership had reached 60, and three sets of wickets had fallen in the clumps that India have studiously avoided.
While a rejigged attack offered some promising early signs as Matt Kuhnemann twirled his left-arm spin away from the bat, the tourists still have a sizeable gap to make up if they are to turn those mirage moments of control into genuine parity in this series.
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