Not usually do you see Indians high-fiving on the opening day of a cricket tour to Australia. But the Gliderol Stadium in Adelaide saw that, as Indian bowlers left Monday morning blues in bed and turned up for work in style.
In an ideal scenario, India would have wanted their batsmen to feel leather on willow in seaming conditions, but CA XI's decision to bat crossed that option out for the visitors, bringing their bowlers into the picture. And as it turned out, it wasn't a bad thing at all to happen for India.
ALSO SEE Day 1: As it happened
With conditions to their liking, Varun Aaron, Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Mohammad Shami made it count and bowled the hosts out for 219.
Aaron, Shami and Bhuvneshwar shared seven wickets between them to lead India's bowling show on Day 1 of the first practice game in Australia. (Getty Images)
Of the fast-bowling trio, it's Aaron who is fighting for a place in the first Test with probably Ishant Sharma who was left out of the 13 players India fielded for their first practice match of the tour.
ALSO SEE Aaron presses claim for Test berth
And of the trio, it was Aaron who impressed the most by generating good pace and collecting the best figures of 3 for 72. What also helped Aaron was the good workout Shami (2 for 52) and Bhuvneshwar (2 for 32) had at the other end, bagging two wickets each.
Where Aaron perhaps needs to tighten up is the runs-per-over department.
ALSO SEE Wicketkeeper Saha effected 6 dismissals
In his 17 overs, Aaron had an economy rate of 4.2 compared to Bhuvneshwar's 2.6 and Shami's 2.8 runs per over. While skipper Virat Kohli would not want Aaron to compromise on his pace, he would surely want him to tighten the leash on Australian batsmen, especially when bowling against the free-scoring David Warner and Shane Watson during the Test series.
In all, India used five bowlers for the 71.5 overs they needed to bowl CA XI out - with the other two being legspinner Karn Sharm and seasoned offie R Ashwin.
ALSO SEE Dhawan (10) only low point of the day
Karn was patchy to start off with but gained control deeper into his spell, especially after getting his first breakthrough. He finished with impressive figures of 2 for 30 in his first outing on Australian soil. Ashwin too was among the wickets, ending the day at 1 for 22.
The other notable performance of the day came from Wriddhiman Saha behind the wickets. Known to be the best in India in terms of glovework, Saha effected six dismissals - five catches and a stumping - confirming that he, not Naman Ojha, is India's No. 2 in the absence of MS Dhoni and will play the first Test.
India replied confidently with the bat, except the early dismissal of Shikhar Dhawan for 10 that remained the only low point of the day for the Indians.
The 13 players rolled out by India, with 11 eligible to bat and 11 to field, in the match don't include Ravindra Jadeja, Ishant Sharma, Umesh Yadav, Naman and KL Rahul who will get a chance in the second practice game.
