If you happen to be a fan of world class groundskeeping, the Gabba on Monday was the perfect place to be.

• As it happened: Aussie bowlers strike between rain delays
• Scorecard: Check out all the live scores and stats

Nobody was working harder than those blokes in maroon on what was supposed to be day three of the third Test. Every now and then some cricket would get in their way, but for the most part this was a masterclass in cover application and removal.

The best estimation was a total of eight interruptions, including a delay to the start of play and false start around about the scheduled tea time, which would surely have put this among the infuriating days of Test cricket in recent memory.

The rain came in blotches, but with a nagging Hazlewood-esque persistence. It meant the ground staff were almost permanently perched alongside the boundary ropes, ready to pounce.

We were all little Charlie Brown getting the football yanked away from us in our backswing, forever on the precipice of some excellent Test cricket but never quite grasping it.

This was a far more annoying day than the first, when the rain came early and refused to budge, because on this occasion we were given glimpses of what we were missing.

When finally given their chance, Australia’s trio of fast bowlers all operated with a necessary urgency. There may not be many hours of cricket left in this Test, not if the forecast is to be believed, so every ball was treated as a golden opportunity.

Mitchell Starc was dialled in, as he has been all summer. Josh Hazlewood extracted frightening bounce from anything on a good length. Pat Cummins steamed in from wide of the crease and demanded answers from the batters.

The only path to victory in this Test for Australia — and frankly for either team, as India’s only hope now is for a wash out and a draw — is for 20 wickets to be taken without it needing to bat again.

And as India’s top order was systematically picked off in between the rain delays, it very much felt like that was a possibility.

Yashasvi Jaiswal prepared for his innings by nailing a ball into the Australian camp during boundary-side throwdowns. With his second delivery faced, he played an identical shot into Mitch Marsh’s breadbasket at square leg.

Shubman Gill slashed wildly at his third ball faced from Starc, setting up Marsh up for a specky at gully. The big fella hovered for a split second, crashed back to earth with a thud and took off in celebration, chest puffed so far out he nearly burst a seam.

Then there was Virat Kohli, three innings removed from the century in Perth that was supposed to have heralded a return to form but still looking decidedly out of form.

He played and missed at a couple wide of his off stump and then eventually, inevitably, nicked one of them.

It is now looking increasingly likely that the Perth ton will stand as a weird outlier in Kohli’s series as the issues he is having are showing no signs of being remedied. He is liable to nick off early every time he bats, and against this bowling attack he will be given plenty of opportunity to do just that.

Rishabh Pant also came and went with little fanfare, leaving India near enough to toast at 4-48 when the big rain finally settled in.

But all of that happened in instalments, brief flashes of action in between painful stasis.

The painful irony was that there were two stretches of pretty consistent sunshine throughout the day. One was while Australia’s tail-end slogged away for some reason in the morning, in what was a rather pointless spell of pillow-fight cricket between two teams hardly throwing their best at each other.

The other was during lunch. Say what you will about the rigid regulations Test cricket forces itself to abide by, but at least the kids on the outfield during the break got a full day’s play in. 

Worst of all, this might be our lot for the rest of this match. The forecast suggested today was going to be the best of the remaining three, a bleak prospect for everyone other than India.

At the halfway point of this series it is clear Australia has flipped the momentum, but unless they can somehow find 16 more wickets in what will be heavily limited time, it will count for little.

The most likely outcome from this point is we head to Boxing Day at 1-1, which is no bad thing for the contest itself but will be a frustration for the home side.

Pat Cummins and co will be pressing the umpires for the next two days, begging and pleading for every over they can scrounge together.

But they’ll have to go through the Gabba ground staff first. There they will be, poised before the first drop of rain has even fallen, ready to protect their wicket with military precision.