Bumrah's ears, Smith's eyes, Davey's tongue

“I like your cute blonde hair”

“Thanks, I like your pincers”

“Gosh, your pad is big”

“Thanks”

*Giggling elopement and a highly gifted cricketing son ensues*

Steve Smith’s parents are plainly not Shane Watson and a crab, but it was hard not contemplate the possibility while watching his first-ball dismissal on Friday. He’s been out LBW in this manner plenty of times in the last few years but his particularly pronounced sideways shimmy and particularly plonky planting of his right pad seemed born of some horrific Watto-crustacean hybrid.

In the pre-match press conference Bumrah was asked a question in which debutant Nitish Kumar Reddy was referred to as a “medium-fast bowler”. India’s stand-in captain mistakenly thought the classification referred to him and took offence. When he came out to desecrate Australia’s drafty pantry of batters with the sort of missiles Joe Biden would take three years to authorise you sensed that his faltering ears had played quite a motivating role.

Smith with a posture so guilty he looked like he was attempting a plea bargain with the umpire

Smith’s shuffle is in truth probably no more pronounced than it was during his heyday. Bowlers’ hands regularly went to their heads as they strangled a celebrappeal upon realising Smith’s own, when not lost, had guided his bat onto the ball. Their hands often then sank to their hips as the ball skipped to the forward midwicket boundary. It’s not Smith’s technique that has changed.

Mohammed Shami has joined the ranks of those patching things up up top, but I wonder if it’s eyes rather hair about which aging cricketers might start consulting specialist surgeons. A fair few snooker players, ex-World Champ Judd Trump included, have opted for laser treatment as age has advanced. For a player like Smith, who wears glasses on Instagram, it might become an option if he does decide to rage against the dying of the light. It is surely impossible for him to maintain his current strategy when his eyes have clearly lost a critical split second, or two when you’re facing Bumrah and his yard-stealing action. I am not a trained physician.

Kohli also wears glasses off the field, though his travails do seem more related to his increased agitation at the crease (or well out of it today), a trait which was ironically once Smith’s ballast. You sense neither he nor Smith would be comfortable going into battle in the guise of a bespectacled bank clerk, however well it served David Steele.

It was day to tremble the senses of the television audience, too. David Warner was on comms and there was some understandable antipathy towards the prospect. The criticism proved to be more visceral than justifiable. There was some very nice stuff on the different type of reverse sweeps he’d attempt against Ashwin and Jadeja and some just generally very affable insight, if not quite to the scalpel levels you get from Ponting. I thought he was a pretty decent addition, his slightly misplaced take on suspected grounded catches not withstanding.

It’s snowing in Britain. A step up from the pillow of grey that normally smothers us this time of year. Watching the first day of the Australian Test summer is always something of a seasonal morale boost, especially when England are not involved. We all saw Bumrah’s absurdity. A key question for the rest of the series is which of Kohli and Smith, their bodies both diminished by the effort of sustained greatness, can participate rather than merely witness.