When Steve Waugh said Australia would come hard at India, he wasn’t kidding. A team scoring 400 for 5 in a single day was not something the Adelaide Oval had experienced before. Australia went on a run-riot and overtook the 387 they scored against West Indies on the second day of the fourth Test of the Frank Worrell Trophy in 1968-69.A closer look at the scoring pattern lets slip an interesting ploy.
| Session | Runs | Overs | Runrate |
| Morning session | 135 | 27 | 5 |
| Afternoon session | 106 | 24 | 4.42 |
| Evening session | 159 | 39 | 4.08 |
Australia played to put India on the defensive as soon as the game began, and once the pressure was on, the batsmen could step off the gas, play a relatively safer game, and still end up with a huge total on the first day.
| Batsman | Strike rates |
| Langer | 80.6 |
| Hayden | 80.0 |
| Ponting | 71.5 |
| Martyn | 76.9 |
| Waugh | 56.6 |
| Katich | 68.8 |
| Gilchrist | 90.0 |
Ricky Ponting was unbeaten at the day’s end, with a score of 176 in 246 balls with 24 boundaries. His strike rate of 71.5% suggests a poor bowling performance, but on closer inspection, it was Ponting’s frame of mind and the pitch’s true bounce that attributed more to his final score. Ponting had an in-control percentage of 87.4, compared to the team total of 84%. His back-foot strokeplay was authoritative, and the number of runs he scored off the front foot reveals how consistent the bounce was.
| Front foot | Back foot | |
| Runs scored | 99 | 62 |
| Balls faced | 169 | 60 |
When Ponting reached his hundred, he achieved the rare distinction of scoring all 16 of his boundaries on the offside. It had a lot to do with the line the Indians bowled.
| Percentage of deliveries bowled to Ponting on the offside | |
| Bowler | % offside |
| Agarkar | 100 |
| Pathan | 88.2 |
| Nehra | 91.8 |
| Kumble | 82.4 |
For a large part of the day, India bowled a good length, and just short of a good length. The arrival of Steve Waugh, unsurprisingly, brought a change in tactics. Of the nine bouncers bowled in the day, five were directed at Waugh. Ironically, it took a half-volley – just the delivery the bowlers were trying to avoid – from Ashish Nehra to dismiss him.
