How Kohli's team-mates are letting him down

Ian Chappell believes Virat Kohli was "frustrated" by Cheteshwar Pujara's go slow during India's day one batting crawl at the Adelaide Oval.

Australia finished the first day, or should we say night, of the Test summer with their nose in front as a late flurry of wickets reduced the tourists to 6-233 after captain Kohli won the toss and elected to bat.

Kohli was definitely stitched up by one team-mate – vice-captain Ajinkya Rahane – who ran out his skipper for 74 in what was clearly the biggest moment of day one.

But former Australia captain Chappell also believed that Pujara also did Kohli no favours by dropping anchor against the pink ball.

The modern day heir to the Rahul Dravid 'Wall', Pujara played a knock for the purists in reaching 43 from 160 balls before falling to Nathan Lyon.

He formed a partnership of 68 with Kohli but the painfully slow run rate meant the game never got away from Australia.

"That's how Pujara plays but he was bogged down too much today," Chappell told Wide World of Sports.

"A player of his calibre should have been able to manoeuvre the ball a bit better and pick up singles.

"I think he was frustrating Kohli by the fact that he wasn't getting singles.

"But that's the way he plays.

"Anyone who can have a six hour net session has got a pretty strange approach to batting.

"And there were times out there when you looked and thought 'well, that's what he's doing, he's just having a net session.'

"I thought he was getting to the point where he was really starting to frustrate Kohli."

Pujara's innings strike rate was 26.88 compared to his Test career mark of 46.16.

Playing the pink ball has been notoriously difficult since its introduction in 2015, particularly under lights.

But Australia's pace quartet didn't get the ball talking in the natural light, with Lyon the most dangerous bowler.

And that's why Chappell felt Pujara – for all his admirable qualities – needed to be more assertive.

"You've got to keep the scoreboard ticking over," Chappell said.

"At 2-41 at the first break, they could have been in big trouble.

"Because if you're 2-80 at lunch then it's about even but 2-41, you're really testing your luck a bit because you've only got to lose a couple of wickets quickly, particularly a couple of your better players, and it can go downhill very quickly."

Ravichandran Ashwin (15*) and Wriddhiman Saha (9*) will resume on Friday afternoon to try to push India towards 300.

History suggests a first innings of 250-plus will be more than competitive with the pink ball.

– AUSTRALIA'S OPENING 'GAMBLE' –

Then all the attention turns to Australia's makeshift opening pair of Joe Burns and Matthew Wade.

Fox Cricket's Kerry O'Keeffe compared Burns to Steven Bradbury after fellow opening bats David Warner and Will Pucovski fell over.

"The aim for India will be to try and bat that first session at least tomorrow so they reduce Australia's batting time in the daylight," Chappell said.

"And the object of the exercise for Australia will be to try and get the wickets as quickly as possible to give themselves as much batting as possible in the daylight.

"The opening pairing is a gamble.

"Picking Burns is a gamble but obviously the selectors felt they didn't have much choice and that's the way they've gone."

Chappell said Australia would be the slightly happier camp over their morning coffee thanks to the massive Kohli turning point.

India slumped from 3-188 to 6-206 before Ashwin and Saha survived till stumps.

"Australia are just a touch in front," Chappell said.

"The wicket of Kohli changed everything.

"You want two set players when the lights are on and they were both batting well.

"That was a crucial wicket for Australia and you knew it was always going to lead to more."