#INDAvAUS: How India A lost the battle but won the war against Australia

Australian batsmen Steve Smith and Shaun Marsh called out for their hat and cap, respectively, in the 48th over the warm-up game against India A at the Brabourne Stadium here on Friday. It was much later than they would've hoped, though.

If the only warm-up game before the four-Test series against India was supposed to give the visiting Australians a trailer of the action over the next few weeks, it was a misleading one.

For starters, the pitch was sprinkled with a gentle layer of grass to hold it solidly together, a far cry from the crumbling cracks the Aussies can expect in the four-match Test series.       

And, after India 'A' captain Hardik Pandya sent the visitors in to bat after winning the toss, he ensured that Smith and his boys got minimal taste of quality spin medicine, a heavy dose of which they are bound to get from India's spin trio of R Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja and Jayant Yadav come February 23 in Pune.       

India 'A' pacers Pandya, Ashoke Dinda and Navdeep Saini — who removed openers David Warner and Matt Renshaw to reduce the visitors to 55/2 — each bowled extended spells in the first session of the game.

The only other wicket to fall on the day, with Smith and Marsh both retiring after notching up centuries, also went to a pacer, Pandya getting Peter Handscomb caught at second slip with the second new ball.

Spin was introduced as late as in the last over before lunch, the 24th, with the left-arm spinner Shahbaz Nadeem. The team's second tweaker, off-spinner Krishnappa Gowtham from Karnataka, did not bowl at all after a pulled a hamstring before lunch.

Chinaman Kuldeep Yadav, who was originally part of the India 'A' squad, was withdrawn from this game after he was retained for the Test squad in place of the injured Amit Mishra.

It meant that the Australians simply did not get to face enough quality spin. Why, Pandya even threw the ball to part-timers offie Akhil Herwadkar and leg-spinner Shreyas Iyer, who has a total of two wickets in his first-class career.

In fact, the only times two spinners operated in tandem during the day was for a brief half-hour period late in the second session and for a brief while in the start of the third session, with Pandya shuffling Herwadkar, Iyer and Nadeem.

Funnily enough, even young Priyank Panchal of Gujarat rolled his arm over with some dibbly-dobbly medium-pacers.

Marsh and Smith were only too happy to milk some confidence-boosting runs, which took the visitors to 327/3 at stumps on the first day, with both the centuries choosing to retire soon after their tons.

The Australian skipper, in particular, warmed up real nice for tougher tests ahead, being his usual busy self throughout his 161-ball stay at the wicket.

He showed his intent of facing spin clear, dancing down the wicket to smash Nadeem over his head for a six straight over his head. Of course, it will be a different challenge altogether to do that against the Indian left-arm spinner Jadeja, a fact that wasn't lost on the Aussies.

"It was a pretty good wicket, pretty true with the quicks," Marsh said on Friday. "Any time you get to spend a bit of time out in the middle, it always helps. (But) we know what we're expecting against Ashwin and Jadeja."

During England's tour of India in 2012-13, the hosts had employed similar tactics of not letting the Englishmen get used to quality spin in the warm-up games that they played before the series b. But the flipside was that it gave the visiting batsmen the belief of succeeding.

The Aussies might have felt much the same after the first day of their warm-up.

Brief scores: Australians 327/3 in 90 overs (S Smith 107 retd, S Marsh 104 retd, P Handscomb 45, D Warner 25; N Saini 2/27, H Pandya 1/64) vs India A