CHENNAI: This was not what India - not just the team but the country as a whole - would have remotely thought of when they woke up on Saturday.
In fact, there was optimism all around. This was supposed to be the day to shut the door on any sort of an Australian comeback and take control of a Test they looked like winning. Instead, under a clear Adelaide sky, India ended up with their lowest-ever Test total of 36, as Australia took a 1-0 lead in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy in stunning fashion, leaving the visitors shell-shocked.
Over the first two days, Virat Kohli & Co had built hope - through gritty batting on Day 1, followed by some exceptional bowling on Day 2 - that you began to dream.
Test wins in Australia don't come easy. India had won only seven out of 48 Tests Down Under before this one. These things tend to excite you. A generation waited 21 years to see India win a Test in Australia. Now, a good batting performance was all that was needed for them to notch up an eighth victory.
But Test cricket is cruel. It can bring life into contests you thought were dead. It gives you moments when you least expect them.
For the Indians, it came in the form of 45 minutes of pure horror. Two world-class pacers Pat Cummins (4-21) and Josh Hazlewood (5-8) unleashed a high-octane bowling performance burning all hopes India had as only Test cricket can. Usually, it takes nearly 100 overs to bowl that many pin-point perfect balls.
Nine for one overnight became 15-2 following the dismissal of nightwatchman Jasprit Bumrah. Before you could even blink, it was 15-5, with Cheteshwar Pujara, Mayank Agarwal and Ajinkya Rahane dismissed in a space of 10 balls. Four runs later, Virat Kohli perished, leaving India at 19-6.
Hanuma Vihari and Wriddhiman Saha ensured that New Zealand's all-time Test low score of 26 was passed, but India ended up posting their lowest, after No 11 Mohammed Shami retired hurt.
It was not as if the batsmen were guilty of throwing away their wickets. This was not reckless batting. Rather, it was relentless probing by Cummins and Hazlewood, who showed why the corridor of uncertainty remains a death trap for batsmen in Test cricket. Pujara, Agarwal, Rahane all played the ball as close to the body as possible, yet it found the edge.
Could they have done anything different? No. In fact, not many in world cricket would have answers to these deliveries. Ask Cummins and Hazlewood to do this again, and they might not.
"It was a strange one. The ball didn't do much. I think we didn't have enough intent to go out there and take the game forward and everything found the edge. Everything happened so quickly that no one could make any sense of it and it was disappointing because the position we were in, from there to have an hour-and-a-half like that was very, very surprising and disappointing," said Kohli.
To survive such spells, you need luck. But India seldom got a bad delivery. Through the course of the Test, both teams put up a grand exhibition of bowling.
If the Indians did that under scoreboard pressure on Friday, Australia responded under even more pressure. They had to be on the money with the new ball.
Pujara has a history of blunting the new ball, and making life easier for the rest of his teammates, like he did on Friday. On Saturday, he had no chance. Nor did the rest of Team India.