One of Test cricket's great levellers is the ability, or otherwise, to adapt to a wide range of conditions around the world.
Some players excel on the hard, flat pitches of Australia, others dominate with the swinging ball on green pitches under leaden skies.
The best players can adapt to play in all conditions — but others will, understandably, be suited better to some conditions over others.
In the third Test in Indore, Australia was subject to the toughest conditions they're ever likely to face — and managed to come out on top with a famous nine-wicket win.
It is not much of a stretch to understand that for Australia to do well in India, it needed Nathan Lyon to bowl well.
On turning pitches designed to help Ravindra Jadeja and Ravichandran Ashwin extract as much turn as possible, Australia needed their premier off-spinner to work his own magic.
And despite being arguably more suited to the harder, bouncer wickets of Australia, Lyon has an excellent record on the subcontinent.
Heading into the series, Lyon had taken 34 wickets in India at an average of 30.58.
And yet, in the first Test in Nagpur, Lyon was overshadowed by new kid on the block Todd Murphy.
Lyon toiled for 49 overs as India made 400, taking just 1-126, while Murphy, the man touted to become his replacement, managed 7-124 on debut.
Delhi was better; Lyon took 7-116 in the match, but another heavy defeat left Australia scrabbling about for positives amidst the ruins of their attempt to win back the Border-Gavaskar Trophy.
Lyon, a veteran of 118 Test matches, might not have been at his very best, but used his experience to help tutor his two young apprentices in the field — particularly Murphy, offering advice on fielding positions and simple words of encouragement to both him and left-arm Queenslander Matthew Kuhnemann, who snared his first Test five-fa in the first innings.
Was this the torch being passed?
Not on your life. Not yet, in any case.
On a frightful pitch that was decried as being "challenging", "a rank turner", and even "a disservice to Test cricket", Lyon came to the fore just when Australia needed him.
After a shocking collapse on the morning of day two handed India the initiative and momentum, despite Australia holding an 88-run lead, Australia's premier off-spinner stood up and dragged his team to within sight of victory.
Taking 8-64 — just the second time he has taken eight wickets in a single inning in Test cricket — Lyon dismissed India almost single-handed, albeit with some sensational help from a single-handed catch by Steve Smith to dismiss the typically obdurate Cheteshwar Pujara.
His 11-99 in the match means Lyon sits second on the list of the all-time Test wicket-takers of foreign bowlers in India with 53 poles at 26.05 — just one behind English legend "Deadly" Derek Underwood and one ahead of Richie Benaud.
When compared to the next-best right-arm off-break bowler on that list, Sri Lankan great Muthiah Muralidaran, Lyon took 13 more wickets in 157-and-a-half fewer overs.
Underwood's wickets, by the way, took 284.1 more overs to accumulate across a 16-match, 10-year spell.
Only Benaud can hold a candle to Lyon in terms of the number of five-wicket hauls — both have five each and one 10-wicket match haul.
GOAT, indeed.
Travis Head shows the selectors ignored form at their peril
Lyon's stunning bowling performance on day two only completed half the job though.
Australia was in such a strong position thanks to the patient accumulation of 60 runs by Usman Khawaja in the first innings.
And even though Lyon set up a 76-run chase that, on paper, may sound easy, when Khawaja was dismissed by a ripper two-balls into the chase by Ashwin, it seemed like an awfully long way off.
Khawaja's opening partner was Travis Head who, despite scoring 525 runs at an average of 87.50 in the Australian summer, had been excluded from the team for the first Test.
Head, it was assumed, would struggle in India.
There was method in that apparent madness — Head averaged just 15.16 in five Tests on the subcontinent against Sri Lanka and Pakistan since 2022.
His 12 runs in the first innings in Delhi may not have instantly inspired confidence, but his 43 at the top of the order in place of the concussed David Warner was Australia's top score of the innings — if that's not damnation from faint praise — and came at a strike rate (93.47) akin to what we came to expect on Australian soil.
Head only managed 9 in the first innings, but his 49 in the second led Australia home.
It was the manner of his innings that was so impressive
Head scored just 5 runs in his first 24 balls as Ashwin and Jadeja probed and prodded at his and Marnus Lanuschagne's defences.
Then came the ill-fated (as far as India was concerned) change of the ball and Head unleashed.
The next 29 balls produced 44 runs — with six 4s and a six — as Head belied the pressure and scored an unbeaten 49 to help Australia secure just their 14th Test victory in India in 53 attempts — and just a sixth since 1970.
Now, the series heads to the world's largest cricket stadium in Ahmedabad.
Having suffered just their third defeat in a decade at home, the hosts will be desperate to regroup and hit back not only to ensure they continue their unenviable record of series wins on home soil, but carry the psychological advantage into the World Test Championship final at The Oval in June.
But Australia will be conscious that now the momentum rests with them.
Just as importantly, the tourists have shown that no matter how bad the pitch, they have the mentality and personnel to prevail with ball and bat, meaning one of India's key psychological weapons has been lost.
Whatever pitch is prepared in Ahmedabad, Australia now knows it has the tools to score runs and take wickets.
Even if it took a combination of a dead cert performer in Nathan Lyon and a prematurely discarded horse that was not supposed to be able to run on this course in Travis Head.
