CHENNAI: If this was a video game, you would have probably already written an angry mail to the creators demanding a refund because of myriad bugs in the version you received. Either that, or you opted to restart the game without saving it. "It's broken," you would have screamed into the abyss.
India would have been forgiven for screaming 'we are broken' at the toss but carried on gamely during the first day of the final Test in Brisbane. You might even have wondered if you had actually time travelled to a different point in this series — Australia won the toss, India handed caps to two more players, one more bowler pulled up and three more catches were spilled.
At the end, the hosts, who need to win the Test to regain the Border-Gavaskar Trophy, had scored 274/5, thanks largely to a ton by Marnus Labuschagne, who was indebted to Ajinkya Rahane (dropped on 37) and a combination of Cheteshwar Pujara and Rishabh Pant (on 49). In fact, the hosts were set for an ominous total before one of the two debutants, T Natarajan, induced two false pull shots in the third session. A promising 3/200 had slipped to an iffy 5/213 on a very good Gabba wicket.
In between all this, India managed to lose Navdeep Saini to what looked like a groin problem. He pulled up in his delivery stride as soon as Rahane missed the chance. Pretty soon, the physio was working on him. There was an attempt made to see if he could run it off but it was apparent that he was in discomfort. He has since been taken for scans.
This was the latest in a series of misfortunes for India whose XI did not have Jasprit Bumrah (abdominal strain), R Ashwin (bad back) apart from the two advertised pre-match changes of Hanuma Vihari (hamstring) and Ravindra Jadeja (broken thumb). In their place, Shardul Thakur (one Test), Natarajan, Washington Sundar (both debut) and Mayank Agarwal were drafted in.
A graphic that made the rounds before the first ball summed up the state of the two bowling line-ups — Australia's bowlers had 1033 wickets, while India's were on 13, with a cumulative experience of four Tests.
That is why the Indian bowlers, who have never shouldered such a workload with the red ball in a long, long time, will look back on Friday with some satisfaction. They generated wicket-taking opportunities, kept chipping away, managed to break partnerships, executed plans that were meant for the senior bowlers. On a day when Rohit Sharma, the second most experienced Indian bowler in terms of balls bowled when the teams lined up for the anthems, bowled genteel medium pace, the four frontline bowlers — and Saini before his injury — showed heart and desire even if they weren't always disciplined. Understandable, considering they hadn't played red-ball cricket in a long while. For example, Sundar's last red-ball outing cricket came in November 2017.
While the 21-year-old admitted to some nerves, he was happy with the way the first day went. "We had some plans going for Steve Smith and Labuschagne and I am very glad they worked. The first wicket definitely felt good." That Smith wicket, snaffled by Sharma at short mid-wicket, was the leg trap all over going. It also helped that an accurate Sundar hadn't conceded a run in his previous three overs, bowling two of those to Smith.
They may be broken physically but they continue to show courage — "warrior-like" in Ashwin's word from the last game — in the face of adversity. The team has to exhibit more of those traits over the next four days if they have designs on maintaining parity.