It’s an accepted truth in Australian cricket that the Test summer starts in Brisbane.
That’s been the case in 51 of the years since Brisbane debuted as a host city in 1928.
Its first two matches were at the Exhibition Centre before festivities moved to the Gabba, which has been an unwelcoming first destination for touring teams ever since.
For India in recent memory, though, Australian visits have started in Adelaide.
When a new series starts this Thursday the streak will be three tours long.
A certain strain of local opinion will tell you that this is the Board of Control for Cricket in India using its financial clout in a dastardly manner against a quivering Cricket Australia to demand the venue most advantageous to its team.
The claim doesn’t match the receipts. In 2014 the venues had to be swapped at the last minute for Phillip Hughes’ funeral. In 2018 one of Brisbane or Perth had to miss out on hosting a Test, and Perth had a shiny new stadium.
In 2020, weeks of foot-dragging from Queensland Health about quarantine restrictions meant that CA had to schedule Brisbane last.
Happy hunting ground, but for a day-night test?
It is true that Adelaide has been a happy hunting ground for India in the age of captain Virat Kohli. He made his first Test century there in 2012, then twin tons in 2014 as a stand-in captain, before leading his team to a win there in 2018.
The 2014 match was really when his era of bold Indian cricket was born, as he set off after a fifth-day chase of 364 and nearly got it.
MS Dhoni handed over the full-time captaincy two matches later.
So, of course Adelaide is where India would prefer to start their series. One aspect in which BCCI influence is nowhere to be seen, though, is that this year Adelaide will be a day-night Test.
In the 2018 equivalent India declined to play under lights, and one does wonder what horses had to be traded to get that agreement.
If the South Australian locale had previously offered India any advantage, it’s hard to see how it could survive a shift into playing evening cricket with a pink ball, something that Australia has done so much more of.
Only 14 day-night Tests have been played in total, of which half have been in Australia.
Even so, it’s rather neat that Australia’s preferred bowling attack — Mitchell Starc, Nathan Lyon, Josh Hazlewood and Patrick Cummins — are the four leading wicket-takers in pink-ball cricket.
And that David Warner and Steve Smith lead the format for runs, with Marnus Labuschagne a surprise in fourth spot having played three of his 14 Tests under lights, averaging 109.
Starc is the key player of those, not just for his 42 wickets but for averaging one every six overs that he bowls, with the wickets coming at 19 runs apiece.
His slippery swing and slingy action has so much potential to make life difficult in the twilight sessions when the ball is hardest to pick up.
India on the other hand has played one day-night Test, a brief affair last year against Bangladesh that was over in a couple of days.
Perhaps acclimatisation isn’t much needed given that India’s players spend most of their careers under the lights of the IPL.
For what it’s worth, eight of the team picked for Adelaide played in that match, and Kohli made a ton.
A feeling of uncertainty from the Australian camp
Which raises an interesting inversion from type, which is that Kohli happily named his XI the day before the Test began, while opposing captain Tim Paine declined.
For a long time Australia made a point of naming teams in advance, as if to broadcast confidence in those decisions, while India was prone to secrecy and last-minute changes.
Currently there is instead a feeling of uncertainty from the Australian camp, with so many possible configurations of the batting order and a lack of convincing options at the top due to injury.
The Indians are comfortable, with four bowlers and five batsmen who played in the series win two years ago.
That sense of comfort was apparent the day before the match, when off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin and opening bat Mayank Agarwal were the only two from the XI to appear in the nets for batting practice.
The rest have presumably had enough during their successful warm-up games.
Movement from the pitch?
That leaves the final factor at Adelaide Oval, which is the pitch.
Since the advent of day-night Tests the convention has been to leave more grass on it to protect the ball, which can help provide swing and seam.
This wasn’t a factor last year, with Warner was piling up a triple century against Pakistan. But on catching sight of the pitch this year from the grandstand, the first response was one of concern at a seemingly white-brown flat surface that could be an Adelaide road.
However, on tracking down head curator Damien Hough around the boundary, he provided the good oil.
Apparently this year’s surface has even more grass cover than previously, increased to eight millimetres, but the seed head dries out to give it that straw colour. Beneath the thatch is leaf, moisture, and in his greatest hopes, movement.
This is what India will need to draw upon, and to hope that Jasprit Bumrah in particular can create the same awkwardness as Starc. Fast arm speed, an awkward bowling action, and an unusual trajectory could be the difference as the sun sets. Or the wicket could deliver on its suggestion of runs.
Whatever the case, Adelaide’s Test in 2020 will be a venture into the unknown.
Australia hasn’t played a Test since January, India since February.
Australia will be working out what has changed since two years ago, India will be feeling out the new conditions.
Predictions are a way to fill the time, but offer little other service. Seeing what becomes of them is the pleasure.
In a year when this summer’s cricket might well not have happened at all, that pleasure can be ladled on a little extra.
