Of Aussie struggles, Virat's solo effort: Tales from the 'nets'

Typically, ‘nets’ don’t reveal much, and the teams ensure that by concealing things in plain sight to throw off oppositions and media personnel.

On Wednesday, Australia couldn’t bury the fact that their current crop of batters are abysmal at playing spin.

It’s not that the people gathered at the Arun Jaitley stadium were not aware of the visitors’ problem - a quick glance at their loss in Nagpur in the previous Test should be enough for that data - but to witness their batters put to shame by barely-adult ‘net’ bowlers was not a good look.

Save for Cameron Green, who is most likely to make his return from the finger injury for the second Test, none of the batters really looked the part as they found it hard to stay poised on practice pitches which played slow and low.

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If anything, conditions are going to be much more adverse on the centre wicket.

So, to watch them fumble and fall frequently to ‘net’ bowlers - some even struggled with throwdowns from bowling coach Daniel Vettori - forced frowning on the foreheads of skipper Pat Cummins and coach Andrew McDonald.

But, there was good news for Australia in that Green looked in fantastic nick, save for a couple of instances where he recoiled from shock after the ball struck the bottom of the bat.

Also, Mitchell Starc bowled with a full run-up right by the main pitch and looked every bit recovered from the finger injury.

Once the Australians wrapped up their session, they mulled about the main ground for as long as they possibly could to see if India’s training session would reveal anything.

The only real interesting bit was that Virat Kohli and Dravid were not to be seen for close to an hour as the rest of the team went through their warm-up drills before the customary game of amateur sepak takraw.

Turned out, Dravid was overseeing Kohli’s session at the nets outside the main ground.

Having watched the former Indian skipper get a hit for close to an hour, Dravid sauntered to the centre wicket and spoke at length to the local curator while his aids removed the two hessian covers concealing the pitch.

As for the pitch itself, it looks dry with plenty of dark spots on a length at either end. There is plenty of grass in between, but spinners hardly hit those areas without getting punished.

Given the Australians’ preference to play spinners off the back foot, which is not the most prudent ploy in the subcontinent, Indians will fancy another early finish to the Test.

Also, if the Australian batters bat with the level of unsophistication they did on Wednesday, there’s no reason to believe that can’t happen. Again.