Australia vs India quick hits: Steve Smith drops a sitter and Rishabh Pant gets peppered on day one at SCG

Test debutant Beau Webster took a pair of great slip catches, Steve Smith dropped a sitter and India's Rishabh Pant got hit in the arm, head, back, stomach and crotch.

Here are the quick hits from day one of the fifth Test between Australia and India.

1. Beau's got buckets

Debutant Beau Webster cast an enormous shadow as he took his place in the slips alongside Steve Smith and Usman Khawaja.

The 31-year-old first-class veteran took just eight overs to get right in the game, with Yashasvi Jaiswal getting a healthy nick into the cordon.

The ball would not have reached Smith at second slip, but the big Tasmanian moved well to his right and got both hands to the ball, snaffling the catch to kick off his Test career in style.

2. Pant turns down a single, then Kohli nicks off

After being given a life on his first ball when third umpire Joel Wilson decided that an edged ball hit the ground before Steve Smith parried to Marnus Labuschagne, Virat Kohli tried to dig in for a long innings.

Kohli struggled for runs in his innings of 17 off 69 balls as he desperately tried to find his best form.

Off his 68th delivery, Kohli knocked a ball into the leg side and called his partner, Rishabh Pant, for a quick single.

But Pant was not obliging, sending Kohli back to face another ball from Scott Boland.

That next ball would be his last.

Kohli's weakness outside off stump became his undoing once again in this series, edging a ball to third slip where Beau Webster took another good catch.

With hindsight, the decision to turn down the single proved to be a costly one for India and Kohli.

3. Smith drops a sitter in the slips

After Steve Smith's aforementioned brilliance in the not-out decision in favour of Virat Kohli, it would be hard to think the Australian star would drop a regulation slips catch.

Unfortunately for Smith, bowler Scott Boland and Australia, the sitter came and was put down.

Boland took the outside edge of Ravindra Jadeja when the Indian was on three. The ball went to Smith at second slip at waist height.

But Smith seemed to get himself into an awkward position and the ball hit his hands at the bottom of the palm before falling to the ground.

That catch would have reduced India to 5-76 and in deep trouble on day one.

It was not the first regulation catch Smith dropped this series.

The Australian memorably dropped a similar catch off the edge of KL Rahul on the first ball of day four at the Gabba.

Australia that day were pushing for quick wickets to try and enforce the follow-on after rain cancelled more than half of the third Test, which ended in a draw.

4. Rishabh's pain

You know it's a bad session when getting hit in the helmet is the least painful blow you cop. (Getty images: Morgan Hancock/Cricket Australia)

The game rarely moves slowly when Rishabh Pant is batting, and that was the case even as he struggled to score in the afternoon session.

His backing up at the non-striker's end contributed to Kohli's demise, he almost chopped on while trying to hit Pat Cummins out of the ground, then he was in the firing line when Mitchell Starc came on to bowl.

Rishabh was left bruised when a ball reared up and slapped into his left bicep. He tried to play it off like a boxer not wanting to show he got rocked but eventually had to call for some treatment from the trainer, although how much impact the ice pack had is anyone's guess.

Pant had to call for the trainer after trying to shake off a blow to his bicep. (Getty Images: Cameron Spencer)

The next blow was more frightening, cannoning into the grill of his helmet and rebounding onto his shoulder. Starc was quick to check on him as the trainer was called out yet again.

He moved to 19 off 63 in the shadows of tea before exploding out of nowhere, launching Beau Webster over the sight screen for the first six of the match.

But there was still enough time for Rishabh to cop a few more to the body, including perhaps the most painful of the bunch when he was folded in half after Cummins angled one in and cracked him in the crotch.

5. Boland's near hat-trick

Scott Boland could have been on a hat-trick earlier in the day when the stunning team catch was denied off Virat Kohli's first ball, but the crowd favourite was back lighting up the SCG in the final session of the day.

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Starting his third spell after tea, Boland was just about unplayable for Ravindra Jadeja and Rishabh Pant.

After a glacially slow partnership, Rishabh eventually tried to up the run rate and top-edged a pull shot high to Pat Cummins at mid-on.

The next ball, MCG century-maker Nitish Kumar Reddy wafted at a wide one and Steve Smith pouched it at second slip.

The hat-trick ball was a peach — angled in and seaming away from Washington Sundar, just missing the outside edge on the way through to Alex Carey, who somehow dropped it above his head. Lucky there was nothing on it.

6. Snicko in the spotlight again

After the Yashasvi Jaiswal drama in Melbourne, where nothing on snicko was overruled by the visible deviation, Washington Sundar was undone by the faintest fuzz late on day one.

A little nudge down the leg side drew a stifled appeal from bowler Pat Cummins and wicketkeeper Alex Carey.

The small snicko spike led to Washington Sundar's dismissal. (Twitter: @7Cricket)

No one really seemed to think Washington nicked the ball but, seemingly out of hope, Australia reviewed.

That review turned out to be a masterstroke as third umpire Joel Wilson, using the evidence of snicko, deemed the ball to have glanced the glove of Washington.

There was the slightest spike on snick while the ball was near Washington's glove, but snicko was not registering a flat-line in the lead-up to the apparent nick.

There may have been a deviation visible on the front-on camera angle, but it would be hard to say with confidence that it hit the glove.

However, Wilson believed the small spike when the ball was near the glove was good enough to overturn the on-field umpire's call.

Former ICC Umpire of the Year Simon Taufel backed Wilson's decision while speaking on Seven.

"What Joel Wilson's looking for here is that spike up to one frame past the glove, and he's got that spike. There's nothing else out there and the ball is underneath the glove," Taufel said.

"The third umpire well and truly within his rights, according to the protocols, to determine that's conclusive evidence for ball on glove."

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