HYDERABAD: A smallish electronic scoreboard left of the Mohammed Azharuddin stand at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium, Hyderabad gave a piece of information a few overs after tea on Thursday.
"11 OVERS AHEAD," it read.
Test cricket, in its original, imagined form, is slow and rhythmic, like the breathing pattern of a resting, healthy individual. Classic rock. Sometimes, it can get a bit heavy metal. Ish.
For vast swathes on the opening day of the five-match series between India and England, it felt like the Test had already entered fast forward mode. Wickets falling in a heap. The ball relatively ragging off the strip. Partnerships were run-scoring was the focus rather than survival.
The one constant in all of this — barring the opening eight overs and the end of the day's play — was India's spin trio of R Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja and Axar Patel.
The last time India played a Test, Jadeja didn't get to bowl, Ashwin wasn't in the XI and Axar wasn't in the country. In the entirety of the series against South Africa, only of them bowled (Ashwin sent down 19 overs at Centurion).
In these conditions, though, they decide the songs, set the tune and lead the orchestra.
With Mohammed Siraj and Jasprit Bumrah slightly off radar — the visitors' 'Bazballing' ways had already given them one of the best batting starts to a Test in India in almost a decade (41/0 after eight overs) — Rohit summoned the cavalry.
Pretty soon, Jadeja and Ashwin had found their sweet spot on the surface which had plenty of turn and some bounce too. The reward(s) followed.
An Ashwin delivery slightly went through the angle when the left-handed Duckett played for the turn. The umpire at the bowler's end had no choice but to give him out (umpire's call on DRS).
Ollie Pope, a very fidgety batter at the start, got an outside edge off Jadeja for a 11-ball 1. Three balls later, Ashwin had removed a well-set Zak Crawley, whose uppish drive was snaffled by Siraj.
Fifteen minutes, 21 balls, 3 wickets, five runs. This was always going to be Bazball's one significant hurdle for success.
Would they be able to quell the Indian spinners after giving them a sniff?
Would they be able to control the tide?
Would they continue playing shots against the spinners?
The answer to all three were varying levels of no.
At one point of time in the second session, the tourists were scoring at 2.4 per over. Such was the squeeze the batters were happy to block as long as they middled it. The boundaries had totally dried and the only currency in town were wickets to spinners.
Unorthodox fields
Even if the skipper had eschewed the idea of boundary-riders in the first 10 overs, Rohit pretty soon set in-out fields.
For Ashwin, he removed men around the bat. There were three men in the deep for both Jonny Bairstow and Joe Root. No. 10, Mark Wood, was greeted with a long on even though the hosts were yet to cross 200.
Without Stokes and the lower-order using the long-handle to good effect, they may have struggled to cross that milestone.
At lunch, they would have had visions of a bigger total. At 101/3, it was the best start by a visiting team in the first morning of a Test in India in the last seven years. But some good things come in threes.
Once Ashwin and Jadeja were done for the morning, Axar produced the perfect delivery. It had pace, dip, bite and turn and it beat Bairstow's outside edge to take the top of off stump.
Jadeja and Axar were in the middle of a very good spell and the wickets were the prize for patience and constantly hitting the right notes. Root looked in decent nick but perished soon after, a top-edged sweep safely pouched by Bumrah off Jadeja.
There was another collapse as 121/3 turned to 137/6. Forget marrying intent with execution; the batters couldn't even get the ball off the square as the trio seemingly had the ball on a string. There was no respite.
With all three spinners rattling off the overs, the batters didn't even get time to think. They are just at it all the time; no hit-me-balls, no lapses in concentration and the knowledge of what to do on surfaces like these. A word of praise also to Bumrah who castled Stokes to curtail what was turning out to be another typical rearguard from the captain.
Saying all that, Rohit and Co. will be a touch disheartened that they allowed the tourists to run up a score of 246 — India finished the day on 119/1 in 23 overs — on a challenging Day One surface.
It may be enough to test the hosts on a strip where uneven bounce — the real killer — could come into the equation over the next few days.
