Put yourself in Dhawan's shoes. He's never played in Australia before, but knows all about the hostility. Everyone he's met since he set foot in the country has been only too glad to fill him in on it. Now, will Johnson dare to bounce him? And can he trust his eye, footwork and technique to protect him from harm if he does? Last week, it wouldn't even have occurred to him that he could not. But last week suddenly feels like a long time ago.

Alternatively, Australia bats. Nervously polishing the as-yet unmarked ball in the middle distance is Varun Aaron, a raw talent, an X-factor, one of few Indians ever capable of bowling at more than 140km/h. He knows he can put the wind up even good batsmen. It's in his blood and in his training. It's why he's here.

But will he risk bowling a bouncer at David Warner now? And what if he hits him? His purpose, far from hurting Warner, would be to claim an early moral victory, but what Australian crowd would make that distinction now? Once, a long time ago, an Australian crowd almost rioted in a similar situation. None of this was on his mind as he was whizzing them down in Adelaide last week, but suddenly last week was a long time ago.

And Warner. What is he to think? Can he think? He was a mate of Phillip Hughes, his one-time opening partner. He was on the spot that tragic day at the SCG, he rode with Hughes in the ambulance, he was an ever-present at the hospital. A couple of days previously, he would have been at Hughes' funeral. Might it be that India could promise to bowl nothing but long-hops and he still would not give a stuff for this cricket match?

Ordinarily, Warner would thrive in the Gabba's charged air. At the Gabba last summer, he opened Ashes proceedings by pulling the first ball he faced, Stuart Broad's first of the series, for four, and in the second inning made a century, and between times damned the shaken English and their "scared eyes" when facing Johnson, and relished the daily rise in temperature. Bowling bouncers, facing them, oohing at them; it was all a game then. But this is now.