The Indian players walked up and down the Eden Park pitch for today's first test, peering at it as if searching for worms.
A couple got down on hands and knees and brushed the grass, if not quite lovingly, then certainly with a high degree of curiosity. We don't see that much of the green stuff at Ahmedabad, they might have been muttering.
A veteran Indian journalist playfully wagged a finger at groundsman Blair Christiansen.
"There is a lot of grass," he said, to which Christiansen quipped that there was "plenty for the goats to munch on". The journalist, with a grin, repeated his assertion.
All the while, India's coach Duncan Fletcher was pacing the pitch, giving it a good deal of attention.
