India served up a bumper feast of short-pitched bowling at Adelaide Oval to dispel fears that this would be the day the chin music stopped.
Mitchell Johnson noted before the Test that his first spell could be difficult as Australia’s pacemen come to terms with bowling bouncers after the shock death of Phillip Hughes.
Two weeks prior to day one, Hughes was felled by a short-pitched delivery at the SCG.
“I doubt it will have a long-term impact … but they might be a little bit tentative now,” West Indies pace icon Michael Holding predicted.
India’s stand-in skipper Virat Kohli was more forthright in the lead-up to the game, noting the bouncer was “part of cricket and it’s every bowler’s right to utilise it”.
And so they did on Tuesday.
It was business as usual for India’s pacemen Varun Aaron, Mohammed Shami and Ishant Sharma.
Their control was lacking, part of the reason Australia started the four-Test series so impressively.
The trio did manage to land a handful of pinpoint bouncers, regularly leaving two men on the leg-side fence for centurion David Warner.
It started in the fourth over, with Warner reeling his head away from a 145km/h ball from Aaron.
The crowd applauded.
Sharma welcomed Shane Watson to the crease in the eighth over with a rearing ball, forcing the allrounder to take evasive action.
Michael Clarke received the same treatment from Aaron in the 19th over.
Aaron, playing his fourth Test and first against Australia, continued to work Clarke over with a series of short-pitched balls.
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