Chepauk was such a furnace on Sunday afternoon that it almost felt like 45 degrees in an air-conditioned press box. The spectators spread towels over their heads in the open stands. Australia's batters took impromptu drinks breaks, and found shelter under umbrellas, with ice towels on their necks, during those breaks.
Soon after the powerplay, Steven Smith and David Warner traded their helmets for caps. Chennai's suffocating heat and humidity was getting to them. India's spin trio of Ravindra Jadeja, Kuldeep Yadav, and R Ashwin then suffocated them even further.
India's spinners bowled 16.5 overs worth of dot balls in their collective 30. They picked up six wickets among them for just 104 runs. They kept hitting Test-match lengths on a black-soil turner that also offered some variable bounce. Australia's batters just couldn't put the spinners off those lengths. Their lone specialist spinner then struggled in the evening once dew set in, leaking 53 runs in his eight overs while going wicketless.
Australia did find some momentary breathing space when Warner and Smith forged a 69-run partnership for the second wicket after Mitchell Marsh had fallen for a duck. Hardik Pandya offered both batters drive balls, but the pressure was relentless from India's spinners. Jadeja was a popgun firing darts on a good length around off stump. Kuldeep, too, attacked the stumps with his stock balls and wrong'uns. Ashwin let rip his carrom ball and reverse carrom ball, raising puffs of dust from the surface.
Australia's batters kept waiting for the loose ball, which never came. They couldn't find other ways to counter the spinners either. They attempted just 13 sweeps for seven runs and stepped out to just nine balls against the spinners, managing only 11 runs, according to ESPNcricinfo's logs. Sure, hitting good-length balls against spin was particularly tough on this track, and the straight boundaries are bigger than the square ones at Chepauk, but batters had to manufacture something to stay in the game here.
Australia ended up with 199, which was about 50 runs short of a par total, according to their captain Pat Cummins. Their batters now face the unenviable task of dealing with a similar black-soil turner in Lucknow, where they will play back-to-back games next week against South Africa and Sri Lanka. South Africa will also have three spinners at their disposal - left-arm fingerspinner Keshav Maharaj, left-arm wristspinner Tabraiz Shamsi and offspin-bowling allrounder Aiden Markram. Though Maheesh Theekshana and Wanindu Hasaranga are both injured, Sri Lanka have the services of left-arm fingerspinner Dunith Wellalage, legspinner Dushan Hemantha and offspin-bowling allrounder Dhananjaya de Silva.
Australia need to come up with new plans against spin-heavy attacks, Josh Hazlewood has said. "Yeah, I think in particular batting in that first innings, that was probably as extreme as the conditions are going to get, I think, in terms of spin and playing spin throughout the middle and trying to find ways to score, keep that run rate ticking over without losing wickets," he said at his post-match press conference. "So, there's probably a good sort of examination on our batters to get that up first, probably against the best spinners in the tournament, arguably. Hopefully it gets a little bit easier from here on in and they'll come up with some new plans and go from there."
Australia have a spin problem on the bowling front too: they have picked just one specialist spinner for an ODI World Cup in India. Ashton Agar, who helped them win a bilateral series in India in March earlier this year, is nursing a calf injury while legspinner Tanveer Sangha is only a travelling reserve with the squad.
In the warm-up match against Pakistan in Hyderabad, Australia tested Maxwell out in the powerplay against the left-handed Fakhar Zaman and even coaxed out overs from Smith, Marnus Labuschagne and Warner, but they didn't use those part-timers against India.
Zampa conceded three fours in his first over on Sunday and lacked wicket-taking threat. Maxwell, who was introduced into the attack in the last over of the powerplay, well before Zampa, didn't trouble India's batters either. The ball also skidded onto the bat under lights in dewy conditions, making life even more difficult for Australia's spinners.
Hazlewood refused to admit that Australia are light on spin and echoed the thoughts of the team management, backing Maxwell to come good as a frontline spin option.
"No, I don't think so," Hazlewood said. "I think our quicks are our strength probably upfront as we saw tonight. And then I think Glenn Maxwell is a frontline spinner, in particular in India. He's bowled a lot here throughout IPL and throughout one-dayers. So yeah, I consider him a frontline spinner. So, we've got two spinners and three quicks as, you know, a lot of the other teams do so no, I don't feel that we're short at all."
Whether Australia have enough spin-bowling resources for the World Cup is still up for debate, but if their batting line-up plays to potential, they can actually throw the spinners off their lengths. Warner, Maxwell, and Alex Carey have a variety of sweeps in their repertoire. Smith and Labuschagne can manipulate the spinners into the gaps while Cameron Green's big reach could open up scoring opportunities. Marcus Stoinis, who was Lucknow Super Giants' spin-hitter in IPL 2023, batted for almost an hour and even had a decent workout with the ball in the lead-up to the game at Chepauk.
Can they turn Australia's campaign around in Lucknow?