Rohit Sharma "chose to miss out" in the interest of the team but the same old script went on in a new day for Indian batters as they folded meekly for a meagre 185 against some hostile seam bowling from Australia on the first day of the fifth and last Test here.
Virat Kohli (17 off 69 balls), whose form and technical weaknesses are also under the scanner, was for the seventh time dismissed in the corridor of uncertainty in the tour, a problem that seems incurable at the moment.
At stumps, Australia were 9 for 1 with stand-in skipper Jasprit Bumrah sending the woefully out-of-form Usman Khawaja (2) back in the hut.
Teenage sensation Sam Konstas was unbeaten at 7 after hitting Bumrah for a first-ball four. The 19-year-old also had an animated exchange with the Indian star.
Bumrah opted to bat under overcast conditions and the ultra-defensive approach by Indian batters only compounded their problems with Scott Boland's (20-8-31-4) immaculate length and tremendous discipline leaving them in a disarray.
Mitchell Starc (18-5-49-3) and Pat Cummins (15.2-4-37-2) were equally relentless giving the Indians no room for release shots.
Rishabh Pant top-scored for the visitors with a 98-ball 40, going against his grain to battle it out, taking painful blows to his body in the process.
If the decision of Rohit to "rest" was a forward-thinking move, persistence with Kohli is proving detrimental and the celebrated batter might just have one more Test innings left to save his place in the traditional format.
"I wouldn't say it's a par score but still a competitive score," said Pant, admitting that the pitch is not easy to bat on.
If one takes away the second innings hundred at Perth out of his last 20 Test innings, Kohli has managed an average of 17.57.
He could have been out to Boland's first over but tried to battle hard. However, it has always been that one moment in which his hands and the willow magnetically follow a delivery in the corridor of uncertainty.
Pant curbs natural instincts for a session
Having copped criticism from all quarters for his bizarre shot selection in Melbourne, Pant, for a change, copped body blows, trying to curb his natural game.
The big-hitter in him came out only on a couple of occasions with one of them fetching him a straight six off Beau Webster.
Pant had his head down and took nasty blows on his bicep, helmet and twice in the sensitive abdominal area. He and the dogged Ravindra Jadeja (26 off 95 balls) defended dourly as they added 48 off 151 deliveries for the fifth wicket.
Only 50 runs were scored in the second session and trying not to be adventurous proved counter-productive with most batters retreating in a shell letting Boland and company dictate the terms of play.
Finally, Pant's patience ran out and one pull shot too many became his undoing.
India realized that they haven't scored enough runs and also lost a lot of wickets. The defensive approach in the second session when the ball started getting old cost them dear.
There wasn't much swing on offer even though there were cloudy conditions, but there was a fair grass cover over the strip and that made Boland's back-of-length deliveries sufficient.
As far as Pant was concerned, the "honest conversations" with head coach Gautam Gambhir seemed to have worked with the southpaw respecting the game situation for most part.
If Pant was disciplined, Shubman Gill's judgement on the last delivery before lunch did cause trouble for India.
Gill (20 off 64 balls) did all the hard work for close to couple of hours before stepping out to Nathan Lyon on the last ball of the session only to be caught at first slip.
KL Rahul and Yashasvi Jaiswal came in to open the innings in the morning but did not last long, and the saga of first innings failures continued.
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