3 Things we learnt from Day 1 of the Boxing Day Test at Melbourne

#2 India need to get at least 375 in their first innings

Kohli will need to push on tomorrow

India was greeted with a green top at Perth after being provided a relatively friendly pitch at Adelaide. However, at Melbourne, the pitch had an odd look to it and as the day went on, the wicket’s characteristic of not providing a lot of help came to the fore.

The first new ball didn’t move a lot and the fast bowlers failed to extract any swing or seam movement. Moreover, the pitch was quite slow which made the back of a length delivery easy to negotiate.

When Lyon came on to bowl, he failed to extract spin too. Even when he did, the sluggish nature of the pitch enabled the batsmen to come through the threat with ease.

The only headache that the batsmen had throughout was the last half an hour of play with the second new ball. However, on today’s evidence, one can expect the pitch to be back to its unresponsive self when the shine of the new ball wears off.

Over the course of the next couple of days, the pitch could get better for batting. Thus, it is imperative that India apply a considerable amount of pressure on the Aussies to prevent them from making merry while the sun shines.

At 215-2, the Indian dressing room would be much happier than its Australian counterpart. Yet, the Aussies kept the scoring rate low, meaning that a couple of quick wickets could still turn the tide their way.

The pitch has looked docile till now and if India is to control the match, they need to get another 150 runs, at least. A failure to do so might lead to India handing the initiative to Australia.

For a while, India’s batting has let them down overseas. However, if they can breach the 400 mark here, they could well be on their way to retaining the Border-Gavaskar Trophy.