Australia offspinner Nathan Lyon has said a change in tactics following a brief discussion with captain Steven Smith helped him claim the four-wicket haul that was key to Australia's fightback, after India's batsmen started strongly on the second day of the Dharamsala Test.
While Josh Hazlewood and Pat Cummins bowled excellent spells of pace and accuracy and took one wicket apiece, India had accumulated 153 runs for the loss of their openers by tea, and had Cheteshwar Pujara and Ajinkya Rahane looking settled at the crease.
Lyon, however, finding more of the bounce that suits his bowling in Australia, had Pujara caught at short leg off a ripping offbreak and, four overs later, foxed Karun Nair with sharp turn and bounce to give Australia a chance of maintaining a first-innings lead.
After speaking with Smith at tea, Lyon settled on a tactic of coming over the wicket to Rahane and varying the pace of his deliveries, notably darting through a greater number of quicker balls. It worked: Rahane edged a fuller delivery to Smith, who took a sharp catch at first slip, soon after play resumed.
"It was a bit of a tactic, I guess," Lyon said. "I spoke to Steve Smith about that at tea time and I was pretty happy with the way it came out in the end.
"If you look at the way the Indians have been playing me, especially Ajinkya, he's been sweeping me a lot and my plan was to come over the wicket and try and get him not to sweep me. So, I could bring in my stock ball, which is more effective, and it worked quite well."
Lyon rounded off his haul when he trapped R Ashwin lbw and, with India 52 runs short of Australia's first innings tally and with four wickets in hand, there seems to be little separating the sides in this deciding Test. Lyon, however, described Australia's position as "quite positive".
"I reckon it's an unbelievable feeling to be pretty evenly poised after day two," Lyon said. "I know we probably left a few runs out there but to have the Indians six down for 240 odd after a pretty good day in the field, I was quite happy to be honest.
"I think coming over here everyone wrote us off and to be in this position in the last Test, one all, and pressure slightly on India, I reckon that's fantastic."
While Lyon didn't think the conditions had changed dramatically, he did believe the pitch offered a little more variation as the day wore on and, with cracks also opening up on the pitch, he expected batting to be very tough for India in the fourth innings.
"Hopefully it's going to be a massive challenge for them, but that really depends on how long we bat for and how many runs we can set them," he said. "But whatever we set India, that's going to have to be enough for us.
"We believe we're good enough, it's going to be good fun and a good challenge for us."