Pressure on both batting line-ups to deliver on Gabba greentop after poor efforts first up

It’s time for the top six for India and Australia to stand up. Their first innings returns have been pretty poor in the first two Tests and with the Gabba set to be seam friendly for the first day or two at least, the pressure is on the batters. 

Travis Head’s ton and Marnus Labuschagne’s 64 are the only scores of note from either side in the first dig across each match and although the pitches have been a bit tricky, it doesn’t explain why the runs have dried up for both teams. 

I don’t subscribe to the theory that it’s all down to T20 cricket but it’s a combination of technique and tactics as to why batters these days don’t seem to be able to grit it out for long periods when the conditions are against them. 

Especially for the first day and early on day two in Brisbane it’s not going to be easy to score runs. 

There is likely to be a bit of movement in the pitch early just because of the weather that’s been around up there, but the bounce is always consistent. 

It’s good pace and bounce that if you can get through that first day, it’s generally really good for batting for the next two and a half days. 

But I don’t have a lot of confidence in either team in the first innings. 

It doesn’t matter who bats first, it looks like they’ll both be out before tea judging by recent form. 

It’s sort of one of those Tests where you don’t mind losing the toss – if India get the choice, I think they will probably bowl first just to change it up.

The batters on both sides have been poor. 

That partnership between Labuschagne and Nathan McSweeney on the first night in Adelaide, in hindsight, just about won Australia the game. 

It was an uncomfortable night of batting and they weren’t fluent at all, but that ugly batting is what’s required sometimes. 

For the Aussies if they bat first in Brisbane, each of them just needs to have one goal to start with – get through the first 20 balls they face from Jasprit Bumrah. 

With Bumrah, if the Aussies can weather the storm with him, the Indian bowling attack falls away a bit. Australia are strong with all their bowlers but the difference between India’s spearhead and the others is massive.

Usman Khawaja and Steve Smith haven’t been in the runs for Australia but I think it hurts more India that their captain, Rohit Sharma, looked out of sorts in Adelaide.

He just did not look comfortable at all batting in the middle order. He’s made his name in Test cricket as an opener so he’s just got to go up the top of the order. 

KL Rahul can drop down to five with Rishabh Pant at six. We saw a match-winning innings from their keeper the last time they were in Brisbane. 

Someone like Khawaja has got a lot of experience in those sort of conditions in Queensland and playing that way of batting time rather than trying to counterattack. 

Usman on his home pitch is crucial for Australia. I know it was only a dozen runs in Adelaide but even that was a handy partnership with McSweeney because it just didn’t let India off to a flyer. He would be fantastic to bat with for McSweeney. He’s rarely flustered, knows his game really well and it generally takes a good ball to get him out. 

A lot of people think that the rise of T20 cricket in the last decade or so has affected the way Test batters play both in a negative and positive way.

You talk to the modern-day player and they say it’s hard adjusting to the three formats. In Test and first-class cricket, you want to leave the ball and wait for a bad one to put away, in 50-over cricket, after the initial spell, you’re getting bat on ball a lot and running between the wickets hard and then in the T20s, you’re hitting every ball and looking to find boundaries every third ball or so.

I think it’s a combination of technique and tactics as to why we don’t see as many grinding innings but that’s where preparation plays a part – that ideally, you do play Shield cricket, that you get that combination right between tactics and the technical side of batting so you are comfortable letting the ball go. 

So I don’t necessarily agree that it’s all down to T20 techniques. Most current players have sound enough techniques. 

Pant was playing some extraordinary T20 style shots in the second innings of the second Test to try to blast his team out of trouble.

It worked for him on the second night but then he got it wrong with his dismissal on the third day, just trying to play a conventional block and he got out sparring at the ball. 

I know it was the start of the day but I thought why wouldn’t you run down to that ball like he had done the night before? 

If he thinks batting like a T20 is the way to go, he’s got to totally commit and keep doing it, because it throws the bowlers off their lengths.

I’ll go the other way to what most people were saying. He went into his shell and tried to be technically perfect whereas I think the opportunity for India on day three was for him and Nitish Kumar Reddy to bat T20 style, Bazball like, and go hard to get the Australians on the back foot.

Heady got the balance right with his ton with his counter-attacking century. 

When he hits through the offside, there’s not what you would call classical technique.

When we got taught as kids, we were told to keep our front elbow up and play in the V with a vertical bat. But he doesn’t do that. He sees the ball, gets his feet into a position that’s comfortable for him with not a massive amount of footwork and then he just has a flick of the wrist and it’s all eye, hand-eye coordination. 

Under the coaching of Andrew McDonald and captaincy of Pat Cummins, he’s thrived knowing that he’s safe in the side even if he has a few low scores in a row like he did coming into this series.

I don’t think he’ll average 50 for his career or ever be a consistent run-making machine like some of our past greats, but the fact that he’s third all time for man of the match awards to Test ratio behind Harry Brook, who’s off to a flyer at the start of his career, and Wasim Akram shows how destructive he can be.

Josh Hazlewood looks like he’s going to play and as long as he’s 100% right, he comes in for Scott Boland. 

It couldn’t have been a significant side strain because a major one means you’re gone for at least six weeks.

Bumrah was bowling full tilt in the nets on Thursday so that’s great news for India.

It’s great for the series that both sides look like they’ll have their strongest XIs on the park with the series locked at 1-1.