CHENNAI: The tension is palpable, heart going at a rate of knots. R Ashwin, with the ball in his hands, sizes up Marnus Labuschagne, the batsman at the striker's end. Ashwin has had the better of Australia's No 3, removing him twice while conceding only one boundary to him in four innings. The first ball of theoff-spinner's first over, the innings' 14th, is a ghost ball, with Ashwin stopping in his tracks just at the point of delivery. Fun and games, prolonging the tension, knowing that he has lived rent-free in Labuschagne's head in the last few weeks.
With Australia at 36/1 and a newish ball in Ashwin's hands, he knows a wicket could again expose Steve Smith. The 34-year-old quickly finds his rhythm. Off his first 29 balls, 25 are dots. It's more or less that same line that troubled the hosts in Adelaide and Melbourne. Even if the pitch is slower and it's not as bouncy, he is getting the ball to drift. Debutant Will Pucovski leans into one with the bat away from the body. The drift catches the outside edge. Ashwin and the close-in fielders are already celebrating but Rishabh Pant drops the offering.
On a rain-affected day, the team will look back at this dropped chance — Pant dropped another one soon after, with Pucovski again the beneficiary off Mohammed Siraj — as the moment when the penny dropped. That Pucovski survived a run out chance during this charmed 30-minute period didn't help the visitors' cause. Post that first drop, the bowling became a touch short or too full and the batsmen took full advantage of it. Take for instance, Ashwin. His first five overs went for seven, with no boundaries. His next 12 overs went for 49, with seven boundaries. With a lack of pace and bounce in the wicket and batsmen looking to take him on, runs flowed freely.
Ominously, Steve Smith didn't grope for deliveries like he had done previously. His first two scoring shots off Ashwin were boundaries, including a waltz down the track for a lofted drive. Free of trying to survive and in better batting conditions — this was the first time he had come in to bat with the score past 100 in this series — he was laying down a marker.
It didn't help that an inexperienced attack lost their discipline a touch. If they had built up pressure in the first two Tests, there were too many release balls here. In Melbourne, the hosts only managed 28 boundaries and a six across 175 overs. In their total of 166/2 in 55 overs, that count is already on 17.
Even if debutant Navdeep Saini, whose first two balls went for boundaries, accounted for Pucovski, his pacey spell didn't trouble the batsmen as many times as he would have liked. All in all, this was probably India's worst bowling effort in whites for some time. If they are to raise visions of keeping Australia to a manageable total, there has to be a slight course correction on Friday, another day that could be hit with rains.
"The wicket is very easy for the batsmen," Siraj, who removed Warner, said after the day's play. "Even the bouncers are not carrying through, so we wanted to just focus on building dots and pressure. Patience is very important in Tests." It's rewarded the team previously. They need to press that button again.