Jhulan Goswami stands at the top of her mark.
Her hair is an unruly mop, her face still bears streaks of white from the full face of zinc she wears as a war mask.
And she’s hungry.
Her appetite has already been whetted by the wicket of Beth Mooney, who had charged out of her crease and tried to whip a fuller ball through the leg side.
But the ball tailed in more than Mooney expected, clipping the inside edge of the bat and exploding the zing bails under the inky sky.
On the previous two nights it was lightning from the heavens that flashed through Carrara Stadium, heralding the storms that prevented play in the final sessions.
But this is now India’s perfect storm: a new pink ball, the floodlights and Goswami, shooting lightning from her right hand.
Alyssa Healy is waiting at the crease.
She’s been out there for duration of the match, opening the batting after crouching behind the crease for two days in a remarkable display of endurance.
She taps her bat and looks up as Goswami steams in, those impossibly long legs flying in a rhythm that is both languid and powerful.
Goswami lets fly; the ball pitches just short of a length and Healy, anticipating bounce, shapes to pull hard, ever the aggressor.
But the ball stays lower than expected and nicks the under-edge near the toe of the bat, missing the stumps as it bounces towards a diving Taniya Bhatia.
Healy pulls a face and examines her bat; Goswami’s mouth forms an O and lifts her hands to her head.
She runs in again; this time the ball pitches outside off stump and nips back in.
Healy shelves her aggression and plays a forward defensive shot.
It’s tight, but not tight enough and the ball scythes through the slimmest of gaps between bat and pad and this time it’s Healy letting out an ooooooo, before chuckling; she knows this is on.
So does everyone else, the tension is closing in as the black clouds had done the night before and you can almost hear the faint rumbling of thunder.
The next delivery is banged into the deck hard and rears up sharply.
Healy is expecting this one and throws everything at it, swivelling her bat horizontally and aiming to send the ball over the mid wicket boundary, wanting to re-establish some authority, but instead the ball follows her and cannons into her right shoulder.
The first flash of lightning.
Healy is made of tough material, but this has clearly hurt.
It’s plain on her face as she walks towards square leg, chewing frantically on gum as she composes herself; she knows she is in the middle of a storm and lightning has already struck once.
She smiles as she exchange a few words with the umpire and then walks back and takes guard once more, a few more calming breaths.
And Goswami stands at the top of her crease.
She places the ball carefully in her right hand, wrist upright and cocked, as if visualising the point of release.
She bends from the waist, rocks back and starts her run up, the first few steps with straightened legs, then her head dips and she launches into her full stride.
This time it’s the perfect length, pitching in that infernal spot that leaves batters unsure of whether to play forward of back, the seeds of doubt sewn by the previous three deliveries sprouting to strangle the mind.
Healy opts for the forward defence once more but this time, instead of nipping in, it shapes ever so slightly away.
The nick is faint, the nick is deafening, the edge is taken.
Lightning has struck.
As Healy curses and walks off, knowing she has been worked over and KO’d in this bout, Goswami is mobbed by her teammates in a flurry of high-fives and hugs.
She towers above them, both physically in the moment of celebration and symbolically in the longevity of her outstanding career; only Mithali Raj has been there longer.
They were both there 15 years ago, the only survivors from the last Test these two sides played; while Australia won that match in Adelaide by an innings and 4 runs, Goswami’s figures heralded what was to come: 24-9-43-4.
She has loomed large over India’s women’s side since and, at 38 years of age, what she has lost in pace she has gained in guile.
That experience may be why she knew the perfect length to bowl, something that had all-too-often eluded Australia’s younger bowlers in the first innings, and allowed her to hit the most nagging of lines with a metronomic consistency.
It is truly a shame that in an 18-year career, this is just the 12th time Goswami has played a Test.
But, of the 2098 balls she has bowled while wearing whites, one need only watch those four she bowled to Healy to comprehend the greatness of Goswami.
