The fans who had taken the seats early at the Wankhede couldn’t wait for the opening ceremony to be done with. Many were looking forward to the prospect of watching the in-form India batting line-up. Going by the huge roar of approval at the toss, the home crowd had little idea of how USA were going to throw a spanner in the home team’s plans.

After four balls of being cramped for room by Saurabh Netravalkar, Ishan Kishan created some for himself by moving a shade to the off side and whipped one over the square-leg boundary on one knee… a business as usual start to the innings.

Abhishek Sharma, feeling a bit under the weather, forgot to give the charge and perished early against Ali Khan’s sharp pace. Instead, Tilak Varma took charge and smacked a six over Netravalkar’s head, forcing the wicket-keeper to come up to the stumps.

A delicate leg glance for a boundary followed and at the 5-over mark, 44/1 wasn’t the characteristic free flowing start for India – Tilak Varma and Ishan Kishan had both been dropped en route too. But bigger trouble was coming their way.

Shadley van Schalkwyk, a strictly medium fast bowler from Cape Town’s

Wynberg Boys’ High School, Jacques Kallis being one of its alumni, rocked India’s boat in the powerplay. First, Kishan failed to adjust to Schalkwyk’s lack of pace and holed out to mid-off.

Then, Varma holed out to mid-wicket after a ball angling away from him seemed to become a bit too big. The very next ball, Shivam Dube was into the pull shot early and lobbed the catch up to short fine leg. In a span of six balls, India had lost three wickets to leave their change room in disbelief and the stands jittery.

The build-up to the match had been quite stereotyped with the USA side being branded a green card holders’ eleven. What many may have missed was the twinkle in their eye to put up a show. When Shubham Ranjane grassed a caught and bowled chance off Suryakumar Yadav (then on 15) in the 10th over, he wasn’t short of a word to his once Mumbai skipper. The boys in stars and stripes were up for a fight.

If India could still climb up to 161, it was thanks to a classic display from India’s Mr 360. Surya was forced to play the situation at the start of his innings with USA slow bowlers having complete grip over proceedings.

Harmeet Singh jumped into his action and made Indian batters stutter in response. In his 4-0-26-2, the left-arm spinner dismissed two of the better players of spin – Hardik Pandya and Axar Patel. Leg-spinner Mohammed Mohsin (4-0-16-1) was miserly too. But they could not keep Surya quiet for long.

Like a seasoned pro, the Indian captain took the onus on himself to bat the innings out. He waited for the right match-ups and then went all out. His former Ranji trophy teammate Netravalkar bore the brunt of that strategy.

Every time the left-armer tried to bowl to the right hander outside the off-stump, Surya found ways to use the crease and let his supple wrists and broad batting blade do the rest. No matter how wide Netravalkar bowled, Surya was quickly across and helped the ball to the leg side boundary. Two of Netravalkar’s overs – 16th and the 20th — were each taken for 21 runs and at the end of the innings, taking the Surya-Netravalkar match-up was overwhelmingly in favour of the India skipper: 8 balls, 31 runs, 3 sixes, 3 fours.

India didn’t have much to show in terms of batting partnerships and the bit-sized ones were dominated by Surya. On a day when the rest of India’s batting capitulated, the captain left an oversized impact, showcasing his ice cool temperament and this will serve the hosts well during the rest of the tournament as well.

Arshdeep, Siraj too hot to handle

With the ball, Surya gave Arshdeep Singh and Mohammed Siraj – playing in place of the unwell Jasprit Bumrah – extended three-over spells in the Powerplay and at the end of the six overs, USA were pegged back at 31/3.

The USA batters tried to play out the difficult overs of Varun Chakravarthy, but the gulf in class between the two sides meant the bat-ball contest in the second essay of the match remained mostly one sided. India’s fighting total got the better of the USA by a comfortable margin of 29 runs.

A win is a win but this could also be the perfect reset India needed at the start of the tournament… a reminder that this is a World Cup and nothing comes easy.