Long before umpires Richard Kettleborough and Richard Illingworth officially called off play at 4:10 pm local time, it was obvious that the opening day of the third Test on Saturday would see no more than 80 balls of action. They were 80 rather unremarkable balls after Rohit Sharma opted to field, his decision influenced as much by the live grass on the surface as the overhead conditions that had rain written all over them.

In whatever little play was possible, Usman Khawaja and Nathan McSweeney weathered the storm reasonably comfortably. There was the occasional play-and-miss, but no major alarms; no edges fell short of the slip cordon, there were no oohs and aahs on the odd instance when the ball struck the pads because it was always going to go above the height of the stumps. Australia had ground their way to 28 without loss in the 13.2 overs possible, clearly the happier of the sides even though this moving Test hasn’t really made any progress worth the name.