After the prelude came the test. Nagpur’s strange chessboard of a pitch, watered and prepared in different sections that may or may not have been related to the relevant strengths and vulnerabilities of the Australian and Indian teams, eventually had to reveal how it was going to play. On the first day of the Border-Gavaskar Test series, the possibility that the dry patches were going to specifically ruin Australia’s left-handed batters didn’t come to pass.
Of course, this may have been because they didn’t give it the opportunity. After weeks of thinking about spin, Usman Khawaja and David Warner both disappeared in the first few overs of pace. Pondering the strengths of India’s slow bowlers and being relieved at the absence of the pace leader Jasprit Bumrah could make someone devote less thought to quality quicks such as Mohammed Shami and Mohammed Siraj.
