How much intent is too much intent? And what, in the first place, is intent?
With Virat Kohli having been India's Test captain for five years, and having spent a considerable amount of that time trying to explain what exactly he means by intent, the second question is a little easier to answer. Intent is short for positive intent, and when a batsman shows intent, he's in a state of mind where he is alert to run-scoring opportunities and ways to put the bowling team off their plans. Intent does not necessarily mean playing a lot of shots. It's about getting past the fear of survival, no matter what the conditions are, and figuring out how best to score runs and get the game moving along.
India, according to Kohli, did not bat with enough intent in Wellington last week, and played into the hands of New Zealand's bowlers, who thrive on playing the waiting game. The second Test in Christchurch, he promised, would be different.
And it was. India's batsmen scored three fifties, two of them at 70-plus strike rates, and there were times during their innings when they genuinely looked to be getting on top of New Zealand.
Prithvi Shaw moved his feet far more confidently than he did in Wellington, got his head on top of the ball, and played his shots with authority to give India a rousing start on a pitch that was green in colour but less so in character.
Cheteshwar Pujara, often taking stance outside his crease, pounced whenever New Zealand's fast bowlers overpitched or shifted their lines a tad too straight. He was selective about the balls he took on, but New Zealand's bowlers couldn't just run up and bowl however they wanted to as they seemed to do against him in Wellington.
Two days before the match, Hanuma Vihari was at the nets, facing India's batting coach Vikram Rathour, who crouched down low near the middle of the pitch and delivered underarm flick-ups that simulated short balls rising towards the batsman's chest, shoulder and head. Vihari pulled or took evasive action depending on line and height, but made an effort to always step back and across and get to the off side of the ball, and into a position from where he could either pull safely, along the ground, or let the ball pass over his left shoulder.
On Saturday, Vihari got into this position whenever New Zealand bowled short and at his body. The rising ball occasionally got Vihari into trouble in his first few Tests, cramping him for room and making him fend or flap awkwardly, but now he was getting into good positions and giving himself options.
Shaw, Pujara and Vihari all made fifties, and all three looked good for a lot more. But none of them even got to 60. All of them were out playing aggressive shots at inopportune moments.
How much intent is too much intent?
Is it too much intent to attempt to drive with an angled bat, on a bouncy pitch, against the 6'8" Kyle Jamieson, as Shaw did when he edged to second slip on 54?
Jamieson took his maiden five-wicket haul in Test cricket, and Vihari reckoned that his bounce made his fuller balls even more dangerous than his short balls.
"He'll get much more bounce than the other bowlers," Vihari said. "That extra bounce is a big factor especially on wickets like this, where it's a little more spongy than what we experience in India or other countries, so with that extra bounce, we need to be very sure of whether to be forward or be back, and leave deliveries as well.
"With his height, his front-foot balls become much more dangerous than actually the short-of-length or the short ball."
So it proved for Shaw, who had driven with great assurance against the other fast bowlers, particularly in the V but also through the covers on a couple of occasions, on the up but with a straight bat. Against Jamieson, though, he went at the ball with an angled bat, always a recipe for trouble when there's extra bounce.
Is it too much intent to try and hook Wagner with tea mere moments away, as Vihari did when he gloved one to the wicketkeeper on 55?
"Yeah, it was the wrong time to get out, obviously, just before tea," Vihari said. "We had had a good session, we scored around 110 runs and we lost only one (two) wicket prior to that, and I was batting positively, and I thought I played one shot too many, but that's the name of the game.
"Sometimes it goes your way, and sometimes it doesn't. Today it didn't go my way but I'll look to play positively again when I get the chance."
Is it too much intent to come out after tea with India five down and looking to rebuild, and look to pull Jamieson, as Pujara did when he was caught off a ballooning top-edge on 54?
Again, it was Jamieson's extra bounce that did Pujara in - the line wasn't too far outside off stump, and the length seemed like a pulling length, but the ball just kept rising, and made his shot look perhaps worse than it was. Pujara reacted with a level of annoyance he has seldom shown on a cricket field before, kicking the turf at the non-striker's end when BJ Watling completed the catch behind the stumps.
Of the three half-centurions' dismissals, Pujara's was the most uncharacteristic, and the least in keeping with the tone of the rest of his innings. With Vihari and Pujara both falling so quickly after an 81-run stand for the fifth wicket, India lurched from a promising 194 for 4 to 197 for 6, and from there they slid rapidly to 242 all out.
"The dismissals happened at the wrong time - whether mine or Prithvi's or Pujara's," Vihari said. "Whoever got set got out at the wrong time, and I don't think the dismissals happened because of the pitch. Mostly it was due to batsman's error."
Errors, yes, but can you blame intent for them? A batsman can't switch intent on or off before every ball. If you've decided to bat a certain way, you have to embrace the approach wholeheartedly, and commit to it no matter what the consequences.
Vihari, for instance, might not have scored at a strike rate in the high 70s had he not been prepared to take a certain amount of risk. Not long before his dismissal, for instance, he had made himself room and carved Wagner to the third man boundary, a shot that would have looked terrible had he nicked it behind.
But was this really a pitch on which India needed to take as many risks as they did to score at a healthy run rate? There may have been a need for it in Wellington, where the bounce was steep but without a great deal of pace off the pitch, but this pitch in Christchurch was quicker and easier to score runs on, in the eyes of both teams.
"I thought it's got more pace, this wicket," Vihari said. "The Wellington wicket was a little sluggish, especially when [New Zealand] were bowling, with the pace with which they bowl and the lengths they bowl, it was not really coming onto the bat, but it was much more coming on to the bat even on the first day [here]."
Given that, did India's approach play into New Zealand's hands?
"Ah, yeah, look, they played a few more shots than what they did in Wellington," Jamieson said. "I think the pitch probably allowed them to as well… Whilst it was still value for shots here, [India's approach] still probably kept us in the game as well, the way the ball was moving around."
Jamieson said this pitch offered the bowlers less margin for error than the Wellington one had.
"I think, with the way it bounced in Wellington, it probably took a few of their shots out of the game, whereas here they could play them," he said. "I guess your margin for where you're trying to land the ball probably gets a little bit smaller.
"And they did well, I think. When we overpitched they put it away, and if we missed [our line and bowled] wide they put that away, so look, it was just about trying to hang in there, and I think as a collective we managed to do that, and had a pretty good day."
New Zealand may have had a less good day, perhaps, had India batted a little more conservatively, and used the trueness of the surface to their advantage. Apart from the dismissals of the three half-centurions, a less intent-driven approach might have helped Kohli and Ajinkya Rahane avoid theirs as well. Both fell to superb deliveries from Tim Southee soon after lunch, but both also played a long way in front of their bodies.
What has happened cannot be undone, and India will hope there's still enough help in the pitch for their bowlers to somehow drag them back into the match. Jamieson said there was a bit of surface softness that had caused a few dents to develop where the ball had landed on the pitch.
"There were a few scallops there which sometimes can harden up and then they can go a little bit off that," he said. "In saying that, it's still pretty similar around days two and three, where you still get value for your shots and it will probably flatten out a little bit."
Vihari suggested the pitch might get a little quicker on day two - which could further quicken the run-scoring, but could also bring the edges into play even more.
"I think it'll get better with day two, the pace might improve, and it might help our bowlers also," Vihari said. "We have bowlers who can bowl 140 [kph], all three of them. With some pace and bounce we'll have an advantage tomorrow."
It's hard to say right now whether this statement betrays more hope or belief. Either way, India will need a big effort with the ball on Sunday if they are to take any Test Championship points out of this series. And they'll have one more chance with the bat after that to figure out exactly how much intent is the right amount.