1. India's New Fairytale Story
The story of Amit Mishra, who has come from an impoverished farming backround in Haryana to become the sixth Indian bowler to take a five-for on debut, is one that will be written many times over this evening.

It was a brilliant performance from the young legspinner, who tossed the ball up and extracted plenty of turn from a third-day pitch to finish as India's man of the hour. Many comparisons will be drawn with Shane Warne - who Mishra named as his idol - which will only heighten the pressure on a 25-year-old who has shot to superstardom overnight.

Mishra last played for India in a one-day match against Bangladesh back in 2003 and at the time he was being touted for big things. The fact that India's questionable selection patterns meant it took him another five years to make his Test debut has probably been a blessing in disguise.

As a simple guy who is still extremely nervous in the spotlight - and who struggled to answer questions directed at him in English at the end-of-day press conference - those five years growing up have given him a greater chance of surviving the expectations that Indian players get lumped with after one big performance.

Watching such a natural legspinner in action is an absolute delight; hopefully Mishra is now well enough equipped to handle the pressure of being compared to his idol.

2. Shane Gains Again
Shane Watson can feel slightly peeved, because Mishra's heroics took the focus off an excellent innings from the Aussie who continues to impress on this tour.

Having played a very good knock when his side were wobbling slightly in Bangalore, Watson kept his side in the match as he notched up his maiden Test fifty.

Crucially, he not only added 78 to the total but also spent a long time at the wicket - after two sessions at the crease he was only on 66. That took the follow-on out of the equation - as Watson said afterwards, he knew towards the end of his innings that the Indian quicks would never be able to get back up and do it again after putting in a lot of hard work.

There have been murmurs from the Australian camp that it would be good to have Andrew Symonds on the tour, but with Watson filling the void so effectively the tourists' yearnings are at least being kept in check.

3. Aggro Ahoy
After day one in Bangalore, a presenter from Indian TV channel made a hilarious case which claimed that match referee Chris Broad's 'easy on fellas' speech to the players before the start of the series had robbed India of the opportunity to show aggression. Lifting clips of the day's action with tenuous links to his theory, he rattled on sensationally as if Broad had already cost India the series.

Despite performing the public service of providing incredible entertainment, he must surely feel quite silly after watching today's action, when Ishant Sharma and Zaheer Khan never missed a moment to provide an eyeful to Brett Lee.

Zaheer has, to his credit, looked to get in Australia's faces at every opportunity, and he's earned the right to give Matthew Hayden a big send-off in every innings of the series to date. Similarly Lee has bowled some fiery spells that included plenty of staring and shared words, and he had a right go at Gautam Gambhir when the opener was putting up some stubborn resistance on the last day in Bangalore.

Aside from a brief word, the umpires quite rightly let today's hostilities go and Lee countered them with a smile, a blown kiss and some cracking shots down the ground out of the middle of the bat which soon had Sharma and Zaheer turning swiftly on their heels after each delivery as they headed back to their mark.

But the incidents certainly served to show that, like the series between these two sides Down Under, no quarter will be given or asked as the real action hots up in this contest.

4. India's Great Secret
While Mishra was the star of the show today, the real difference between the two sides so far (a 201-run difference, lest we forget) has been the ability of India to induce reverse swing unbelievably early in the innings.

Today they only delayed taking the new ball by 1.1 overs - despite the fact that the old ball was reversing and turning - simply because they knew that it wouldn't take them long to get even more movement out of a hard one.

It's got the Aussies in a spin, and Watson admitted with something of a desperate look on his face that they're "doing everything (they) can as a bowling group" to work it out. Confirmation of the reverse swing's importance came when he went on to say that "it's still a beautiful wicket to bat on".

Which is true, because while it may be turning almost square there is no variable bounce like we saw in the first Test.

Having made a hash of the evening session and allowed India's opening batsman to get away from them, and with Cameron White still failing to threaten, Australia desperately need to find the key to this reverse swing if they're to take wickets and slow India down.

5. Australia Down... And Out?
With India going along nicely, attention is already turning to Australia's next innings and when Mahendra Singh Dhoni will call for it.

The lead currently stands at 301, but just how many will India think to be enough? Watson insisted he genuinely believed that Australia could win if they were set 450 with four or five sessions to play, but it's not as if he can say anything else now, is there?

450 should be more than enough, and it should also leave enough time - at least four sessions - for India to claim the ten wickets.

Having pushed Australia hard in their own backyard now the smart money will be on India to topple the number one Test team, and it's difficult to see how the tourists could come back from a defeat here.

Tristan Holme