The ball left Jasprit Bumrah's hand with a whoosh. Shakib Al Hasan got in line with it. The length was full. So he was forward. The line was on fourth stump. So he was across. Bumrah was the biggest threat in the opposition. So he defended with soft hands. Tock. The sound echoes around the stadium. There was virtually no time between the whoosh and the tock. A zeptosecond is a trillionth of a billionth of a second. Test match batting in India lives somewhere in there.
For a while, Bangladesh had risen to meet this challenge. They put on a fifty partnership during which they were in control of 89% of the deliveries they faced and scored eight boundaries. Some of them were really pleasing, Litton Das moving smoothly forward to a good-length ball from Akash Deep and essentially defending it through the covers. Taken in isolation, the cricket in this little period of play showed two teams evenly poised.
And then it happened. Like it has always happened.
Ravindra Jadeja had Litton pinned to his crease, giving him no way out. The line was constantly at fifth stump. The length too good to do anything but defend. Conditions in Chennai were such that the spinners were the best source of runs but here was one who simply wouldn't give anything away. Basically, if you ever want anything from Jadeja, never be 22 yards away from him.
Litton didn't have that luxury so he decided to make his own arrangements. It was a decent plan. He had spent enough time in the middle to figure out the pace of the pitch. He had also seen that midwicket had been left open. Now if he were to shuffle across his crease a little bit, he could meet those good-length balls just outside off stump under his eyes and sweep them into the gap. So that's what he did, except he went a zeptosecond too early. And Jadeja spotted it. He shifted his line wider. Additionally, this ball landed on the seam and bounced that extra bit higher. So instead of the plan that Litton had set, he ended up miscuing a catch to the only man in the deep on the leg side square of the wicket.
Bangladesh's recovery was done. They were 91 for 6 and then 149 all out.
Building partnerships against India in India is a gruesome process. Visiting teams' first six wickets have averaged 26.04 here in the last five years. No other place is as hostile. A part of this is surely the result of the spin-friendly nature of the conditions. They've at times been extreme.
But there is another reason as well. Bumrah typified it in the dying stages of the Bangladesh first innings when he slapped one hand onto the other. He was disappointed at presenting Mehidy Hasan Miraz with a ball that he could get to the pitch of and drive through the covers. India do not like offering run-scoring opportunities up on a platter. That is, in fact, their entire agenda when they play at home. It isn't to take wickets. It is to build pressure. Because if they get it right, things like Litton's mis-hit happen. Or Joe Root's. Or David Warner's. On each occasion, a side that was enjoying a period of ascendancy slipped, never to recover again. And every time it was the result of India simply doing the basics right.
Their attack isn't seduced by the idea of magic balls. They just sit in and wait. Crucially, they give no sighters. Even during Bangladesh's best phase of play on Friday, there were only six balls - out of 92 - that allowed Litton and Shakib to breathe easy. Those were the only ones they could leave alone; the only ones that didn't come with the threat of a dismissal. In contrast, Hasan Mahmud gave Rohit Sharma the chance to leave five straight balls alone in just the second over of India's first innings. When a batter doesn't need to play a shot, their vulnerabilities are never in play. India want vulnerabilities to be in play. Always.
Batting against them on their turf is a pointed and endless examination. How often are you okay pushing forward but never having the drive as an option? How will you cope against the short ball when it doesn't provide the room to cut or pull? How long can you keep doing the right things over and over and over again when they don't yield a lot of runs?
Turns out, not long. In the last five years, there have been 265 partnerships for the first six wickets of every visiting side. Only nine of them have made it to 100.
India's dominance at home is directly related to the depth, skill and variety of their bowling attack. And this is their signature skill.