Yashasvi Jaiswal has been dismissed twice in the opening over by Mitchell Starc in the ongoing series ©Getty
Yashasvi Jaiswal wasn't done yet. He was only getting started.

By then, Rohit Sharma had already started interacting with the hundred or so Indian fans gathered on top of and all around the MCG nets. They'd been screaming his name for nearly an hour before finally getting his attention or getting him to react anyway. Rohit was if anything getting very amused by some of the chants from the faithful, some who've travelled all the way from India. Not to forget the miniature bats, being hung off threads and dropped down by some to be autographed. The latest illustration of the ingenuity of Indian cricket fans.

Rohit himself had just finished a pretty lengthy stint in the nets, mainly facing throwdowns through his 40-minute-odd hit. And just as it looked like India's main training session before the Boxing Day Test was about to come to an end, Jaiswal decided he wasn't done yet. The young opener had sat quietly on one of the white chairs placed on the sidelines of the nets area, not too concerned with anything else happening around him. He'd at best exchanged a couple of words with one of the coaches. Before he decided to put his helmet on and resume batting for the third time on Tuesday afternoon.

Jaiswal insisted on facing only Nuwan Seneviratne, the long-serving left-arm throwdown specialist from Sri Lanka and doing so for nearly 20 minutes. It felt like this was the left-hander's exclusive workout in preparation for facing Mitchell Starc, the Australian new-ball supremo who's now dismissed him twice in the first over of the Indian innings in this series. Like he'd done in his earlier stints on Tuesday, Jaiswal's main focus was on consciously leaving deliveries on and around a virtual fourth or fifth stump line, while still trying to play forceful shots off any delivery that landed in his half and was in line of the stumps. It included replaying the same shot that had dismissed him at the Gabba, the uppish flick off the left-armer, though here he looked very keen on executing it better than the way he'd done early in the piece in Brisbane.

There were a couple of occasions where he admonished himself, both times while trying to force and miscuing deliveries that landed on a length and were probably not hitting his stumps. The highlight of this chapter of Jaiswal's three-net approach to preparing for the MCG Test was a damaging cover drive off a full delivery, which he'll be trying to replicate come Thursday against the real Starc.

Once the pseudo Starc net was done, Jaiswal immediately turned to one of the right-arm throwdown specialists and got him to chuck deliveries at him like he was Scott Boland, or somewhat similar in terms of pace and lengths of deliveries. Here again, the 22-year-old remained steadfast with regards to deliveries he was choosing to leave, shouldering arms quite regularly, as he'd done again earlier while facing the likes of Mohammad Siraj and Akash Deep with the new-ball. Only once did he edge a delivery while poking tentatively before immediately telling himself off for the lack of complete commitment towards his shot.

The session finished interestingly, with Jaiswal playing a rather defensive prod to a slightly full delivery. He then immediately headed to head coach Gautam Gambhir who had a few words of wisdom for the young Mumbai opener who's trying to regain the glorious touch he was in while scoring the memorable Test ton in the second innings in Perth.

All while an ageing Mumbai opener turned middle-order batter tried desperately to reignite the glorious form that had deserted him in recent months. To start with, nobody was sure if the Indian Test captain would even have a hit on Tuesday. He'd addressed the media earlier in the afternoon and confirmed his availability for the fourth Test, here in Melbourne.

But he'd then stood at the back of the nets, having repeated conversations with Gambhir and chief selector, Ajit Agarkar. And not looking like someone who was in the mood for a bat. It turned out he was simply waiting his turn, as the likes of KL Rahul, Virat Kohli, Rishabh Pant and Jaiswal had their go first.

Unlike the rest, Rohit didn't bother facing the bowlers, most of whom were already done. It was simply the headman of the throwdown specialist company, Raghu, and Daya, the guy who'd struck Rohit on the left knee two days prior. Rohit's knee though not as mysteriously injured as Travis Head's quad was, being monitored quite closely from the time he'd walked off the net and iced his knee on Sunday.

There were a few hair-raising deliveries off the rather spicy nets pitches for Rohit to contend with from Daya. One in particular that reared at him and flew past the splice of his bat. But though he reacted to it in very Rohit Sharma fashion, both in terms of body language and the words he used, the Indian captain largely looked untroubled in the crease. There were a couple of plays and misses but mainly he middled every shot he played and capped it off with a ferocious pull shot that drew a wild response from the fans above. He even pulled Daya aside for a chat as to what he really wanted from him with the sidearm.

By the end of his session, he was in so much comfort that he even took a break from his own batting to admire, advise and commend Akash Deep for his bat-swing and power-hitting ability in the adjoining net. Rohit finished his stint in the nets with a couple of very confident forward defensive strokes before picking up his bats and walking off, once again in no real discomfort.

It'll be a very different atmosphere he'll walk into later this week, but Rohit and India will hope that he walks off in the same satisfied and relaxed fashion as he did on Tuesday. In contrast to the downbeat figure he cut after being nicked off by Pat Cummins at the Gabba. He needs runs. His team needs him to score runs. He'll know it. They'll know it.

Despite a couple of low scores since his Perth heroics, Jaiswal is due, and he doesn't look like he's done yet in this series. Hopefully the same can be said about Rohit, not just in this series but also in his Test career. He'll hope so. India will hope so.