Okay, it's always hard to know how the 22m strip in the middle of the field is going to behave.
It wouldn't have taken much effort, though, to find out what the curator at Rajiv Ghandi Stadium, Hyderabad, was thinking.
The national Times of India reported a day before the first test that the wicket was going to offer considerable bounce to the spinners, if not prodigious turn.
Incidentally, the last time New Zealand played a test against India there in November 2010, the pitch yielded 1338 runs in the stalemate, including three tons. Brendon McCullum scored a double century.
That prompted now unwanted Indian offspinner Harbhajan Singh to say: "The curator should be given a contract for building national highways."
On that scathing post-match evaluation, logic suggests it was always going to be a spinner-friendly wicket, albeit without the "Turbanator" who made way for offie Ravichandran Ashwin and Pragyan Ohja.
Besides, the Black Caps' disastrous tour of the Caribbean just weeks before the Indian tour was open to global interpretation.
Sunil Narine and Narsingh Deonarine had taken 18 of the 40 wickets in the two-test flogging against the Windies.
Ashwin's 12 for 85 haul has the Indian media asking if he is the next Indian spin great.
A little presumptuous perhaps considering he has just seven test matches under his belt and the New Zealand batsmen look like fish out of water when playing spin.
India captain MS Dhoni effectively used his opening seamers Zaheer Khan and Umesh Yadav a total of 42 overs compared with the two spinners who served up 134.3 overs.
Dhoni, who even resorted to using part-timers Virender Sehwag, Suresh Raina and Sachin Tendulkar for the odd over, introduced his specialists very early in both innings.
One subcontinent scribe this week alluded to how India's tour of Australia last summer was statistically nothing to write home about after India's 4-0 defeat and Ashwin's nine scalps for an average of 62.77 runs.
Still wet around the ears, what made it eventful for Ashwin was the realisation that he needed to master flight in deliveries on what were primarily benign wickets for finger spinners.
The wickets across the Tasman tend to offer more traction to wrist spinners who are able to produce a higher number of revolutions from the ball.
Conversely, the finger wallahs have to conjure ways to deceive the batsmen in the air but also find some purchase from the Hyderabad type of strip that offers variable bounce.
In a nutshell, India were on a hiding to nothing but it didn't deter the camp from exposing an inexperienced test pair of tweakers in Ashwin and Pragyan Ohja.
Now juxtapose the Indian spinners with New Zealand.
After playing second fiddle to Daniel Vettori for decades, a new regime decides to select Wellington offspinner Patel on the basis of his county cricket success this year.
Nethula, who has refined his bowling under the scrutiny of Mike Shrimpton in Napier and also travelled to India of his own accord to acclimatise before jetting off to the Caribbean, is almost in the same boat as Patel.
Unlike Ohja, he isn't bowling in tandem with Patel and few will be holding their breath that he will before tomorrow's second test in Bengaluru.
It scarcely matters that Nethula will take a pasting from batsmen adept at playing spin.
What matters most is returning home, as man-of-the-match Ashwin did, with some idea of where exactly he stands as a leggie in the world of test cricket.
In Mark Greatbatch's short and tumultuous reign as coach, the former Black Cap had identified a rash of budding spinners in this country to hone their skills through high performance and overseas exposure.
Where are they now, apart from Nethula and Roneel Hira, and what is coach Mike Hesson's agenda?
Nethula is in an NZ A team to play their Indian counterparts in Christchurch in a series of ODIs and four-dayers but is experience on Kiwi wickets the same?
When the mainstayers of New Zealand's innings, such as Martin Guptill and Ross Taylor, are struggling in innings that fail to break the 200-run barrier, one has to think a little outside the square.
Wouldn't it be equally enterprising to restrict the opposition to a low score to give yourself some parity?
No doubt, the batsmen will be toiling to become spin savvy while the Black Caps spinners are becoming wicket wise to find cricketing utopia.
