Martyn on a roll

When India look back on the opening day at Nagpur, they will experience a mixture of elation and disappointment. Having fought back magnificently to wrest the initiative before lunch, they threw it away with some wretched bowling after the interval, not helped by a pitch that eased out to be as flat as the pancake that was always predicted despite the decorative green covering. With Australia 3 for 234 moments before tea - 143 came from the 29 overs bowled in the afternoon session, unacceptable figures no matter what the quality of the batting - the match and the series were slipping away, but Murali Kartik then produced a spell as eye-catching as the streaks in his hair to ensure that the final session wouldn't be the run-fest that the second had been.

Deprived of the services of Harbhajan Singh - a far more significant absentee than either Sourav Ganguly or Irfan Pathan, given his record against Australia - Rahul Dravid initially appeared unsure of how to attack opponents who started with customary flourish. Neither Ajit Agarkar nor Zaheer Khan did enough with the new ball, though there was enough lateral movement, and it didn't help that the slip cordon - prompted by a lack of faith in the wicketkeeper? - was deep enough to bring back memories of the West Indian speed demons of yore.

Both Zaheer and Anil Kumble then bowled themselves to a standstill after lunch, and were unavailable when Damien Martyn and Darren Lehmann started to hit the ball with crispness and power. Murali Kartik came on late, and Sachin Tendulkar even later, while Agarkar chose that passage of play to illustrate why so few rate him as a Test-match bowler.

His bowling to Martyn could best be described as thoughtless. Pitching short to a man who made his reputation for back-foot play at the WACA in Perth was a bit like sending down loopy half-volleys on off stump to Ganguly in his pomp, and Martyn duly cashed in with some sumptuous drives and cuts.

To focus too hard on Indian inadequacies would be to overlook the luminosity of Martyn's batting. When he came forward to the spinners, his footwork was decisive and precise, and on the back foot, he was seldom hurried into a false stroke. Visiting batsmen - most notably Ricky Ponting on the last tour - have prodded forward with dismal results in Indian conditions, but Martyn's method - treating each ball on its merit, with no pre-conceived plan of attack - showed that the most effective solutions are also the most simple.

But for two beautiful deliveries from Kartik, India could conceivably have given up 400 runs, as they did on the opening day at Adelaide last year. For someone with nothing to gain - Harbhajan is a shoo-in if he regains fitness before Mumbai - and everything to lose, Kartik's performance spoke volumes of his character. The initial overs were touched with hesitancy, expected from someone who has never enjoyed a decent run in the XI, but later on the beguiling loop and turn that first caught the eye several years ago were in evidence. On a day when Kumble wasn't quite his immense self, it was a virtuoso performance.

To be fair, India's position would have been far healthier had Michael Clarke been given out when struck on the back pad by Zaheer. Replays suggested that he was palpably plumb, and Zaheer's bemused expression - he bowled with great heart and skill after an indifferent opening spell - said enough of India's anguish. Clarke had made just 6 then, and he and Martyn would add a further 65 before being separated.

But once again, India have to look within - or behind the stumps in this case - to pinpoint the root cause of their troubles. Parthiv Patel fumbles the ball more often than David James, England's much-maligned goalkeeper, on a bad day, and he gave Clarke two gifts of life late in the day, courtesy a fluffed stumping and a horrendous drop. His expression afterwards suggested that he was on the verge of tears, and after the endless media scrutiny of the last few days, you couldn't blame him.

There are times when courage in the face of adversity is an admirable thing. But in Patel's case, surely the time has come to take the backward step into first-class cricket so that he can restore shattered confidence and rebuild what remains of his technique. For the moment, every second he spends in the middle only enhances the intolerable cruelty of the poison-pens, and for one so young, that appears too much of a burden to bear.

Dileep Premachandran is assistant editor of Wisden Cricinfo.