India will have to be flexible all the way through

If the nature of pitches for India's remaining matches was left to the discretion of Kuldeep Yadav, R Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja, they may want to carry the Chepauk track around on this World Cup caravan.

- Vivek Krishnan

The surface in Chennai, wearing a dry and brownish hue once the smattering of grass was shaved off two days prior to the game, took prodigious turn and generated disconcerting bounce from the very first over of spin. They are ideal ingredients for spin bowlers, especially of India's stature, to run through the opposition.

In Kuldeep, Ashwin and Jadeja, India are blessed with the perfect blend of guile, variety and street smartness.

The trio, not surprisingly, combined for figures of 30-3104-6. Breakthroughs were routine and bad balls rare when they were operating in tandem, contributing to Australia not finding a single boundary for 74 balls at one stage. From a batting perspective, going into your shell against high-quality spin is a readymade recipe for disaster that Australia will have to avert in their coming games.