TWENTY minutes after the players had left the field on Friday night, Australian coach Darren Lehmann walked out for a pitch inspection.
It wasn't to reminisce over the greenish strip on which the Aussies had just trounced Pakistan, but to get an idea of what his team might be in for tonight against India, on a brand-new surface that was already being worked on feverishly by Mohali curators. 
How different the adjacent wicket being prepared for a sudden-death shootout against hosts India will be from the excellent conditions rolled out for the Pakistan match has the potential to decide who will progress to face the West Indies in the World T20 semis.
Reports about pitches doctored to favour the hosts were hard to ignore when you saw the Nagpur minefield prepared for India's opener against New Zealand, or the usually seaming deck in Dharamsala transformed into a raging turner because the original schedule had MS Dhoni's team playing there as well.
There are significant doubts over whether the conditions in Mohali can be reformed as easily as other venues, but there are plenty of conspiracy theorists who are adamant the BCCI will have a pretty clear message for the Mohali curator.
In any case it's hard to imagine the wicket will have as much grass on it as was left for the Pakistan game, and the fact there's a women's match -immediately preceding the India and Australia showdown won't be doing wonders for the quality of the track by the time the first ball is bowled.
Australian all-rounder Shane Watson, a veteran in India, has a fair idea what he thinks is going to happen.
"I know that conditions are going to be different, and obviously their team is different (to Pakistan), so we know we're going to have to be at our absolute best," he said."If you can beat India on Indian soil at any stage in any format, it's an incredible achievement. When they click they're nearly unbeatable. We've got to put them under a lot of pressure straight away."