India's walk down the nightmare lane in Adelaide

In the end, it wasn’t during the expected ‘twilight hour’ of the pink-ball Test, but in broad mid-afternoon daylight, that India’s batsmen were felled by their own demons and some excellent pace bowling.
FIRST TEST: FULL SCORECARD
A day that began with a 62-run lead for Virat Kohli’s men, and promised much by way of consolidation, turned instead into a horror sequence of dismissals unlike any seen before in India’s Test history.
A batting line-up, including the likes of Pujara, Kohli and Rahane, seemed frozen in fright, and eventually reduced to blind panic, as India were snuffed out for an unbelievable 36, their lowest-ever score in 88 years of playing Test cricket.

It is the lowest total seen on the Test circuit in 65 years. Nine wickets fell for 21 runs on the third morning in 15.2 overs. The first six wickets fell for 19, another record low for India.
The total, 36, is so poor it is hard to comprehend that this Indian team, so habituated to courting success, is capable of such an abysmal performance. Just before the start of the game, captain Kohli had said he was a “representation of the new India”. He must be eating those words now.

Nothing in the match had been leading up to such an inexplicable end, even accounting for the superb spells by Josh Hazlewood (5/8 in 5 overs) and Pat Cummins (4/21).
To top off India’s nightmarish day, Mohammed Shami was struck on the arm, resulting in an injury which may see him out of action for a while.

Australia, after having struggled to stay in the game, found themselves home and dry by the second session on the third day. They won by 8 wickets after merrily chasing down 90 against a deflated three-bowler attack which was weighed down by the ignominy of an all-time low.

Hazlewood and Cummins brought in occult charm to the proceedings, targeting the stumps and exploiting to perfection both India’s batting frailties and a new-found freshness in the pitch. India didn’t throw away their wickets, but they also couldn’t avert the total disaster.

It was Pujara’s dismissal, off the second ball of Cummins’ third over, that roused the snake in the grass. Cummins simply did what he does best, pitching it up, getting it to angle in and then straighten away.
Pujara played the wrong line, his bat face towards mid-on and his feet going nowhere. The alarm bells started ringing.

In came Hazlewood, bowling a little bit fuller and a little bit straighter on a wicket which had metamorphosed from its sluggish first-day avatar into a livelier, bouncier surface. With movement on offer off the pitch, Hazlewood was a handful with his extra pace.
Out went Agarwal and Rahane in the same over. Disbelief set in. A rattled Kohli chased a widish one from Cummins, the flailing drive flying to gully where Green fumbled but held on.

There were to be no further comebacks. Hazlewood went on to become only the seventh bowler in Test history to take 5 wickets while yielding 8 or lesser runs. But it wasn’t that he and Cummins were completely unplayable, as Kohli admitted later.
They bowled smartly, with 48% of Australia’s deliveries on a good length.
The average swing was 0.58 degrees, and the average seam 0.66, meaning while there was movement, it was not extravagant and there was nothing bewitching in the conditions. With a little bit of fortitude, like they exhibited in the first innings, there may have been less shame for India.

It’s just that the edges flew and the catches were taken as India’s despair and anxiety mounted.
There will be much hand wringing and remorse but there is no going back to remove this indelible blot. This generation of Indian cricketer takes much pride in standing up to the opposition and travelling well, but in the blink of an eye, history has been made of the most unwanted kind.
The stench of this humiliation is likely to hover over the Indian batting lineup for a long time.