Anyone desperately hoping for a contest on day one of the Boxing Day Test had their wish granted. But rather than from the West Indies against Australia it was between two of the home team's players, Joe Burns and Usman Khawaja, about which could reach their century first.
The ease with which the Queenslanders took their partnership beyond 250, after being made to bat first at the MCG, would have exacerbated Shaun Marsh's frustration at missing selection. He would feel he could have filled his boots even fuller than he did in making 182 in the first Test in Hobart. 
Any temptation West Indies captain Jason Holder would have had to field first, given the rain that had dogged Melbourne since early in the morning and delayed the start by an hour, would have been helped by the distinctly green tinge to the pitch when it was uncovered just before the toss, which the mandatory mow did little to change.
Holder won the toss and sent Australia in to bat in overcast conditions. By the time Burns and David Warner got there half an hour later, however, the skies had turned to blue.
Seam movement off the pitch can be valuable for bowlers, but when facing Australia swing is the vital ingredient for success, as was reinforced during the Ashes earlier this year. The visiting seamers achieved some of the former but none of the latter. It was therefore of no surprise that Australia made such an assured start to the Test.
Across the first five hours of the day the only wicket to fall was arguably self-inflicted: that of Warner for 23.
The left-hander began with three consecutive boundaries. It was not that Warner was in Twenty20 mode; instead, it was that he was greeted with short dross from Kemar Roach that he had deservedly sent to the boundary.
Warner's 23 runs came from the first eight deliveries he faced: five boundaries and a three. He fell to a shot that regularly proved his downfall in England: the pull. He aimed the shot to a delivery aimed into him from Jerome Taylor, who attacked him from around the wicket, but was sufficiently cramped that the ball lobbed off the shoulder of his bat to mid-off, where Marlon Samuels came perilously close to dropping the chance but eventually snared it after a brief juggle. It extended Warner's run of having yet to make an international century, in Tests or limited-overs, at the MCG.
In England, Warner's problem was that he was playing half-hearted pull shots and was spooning the ball into the leg-side. More effort was put into this latest stroke but the outcome was the same.
Former Australian batsmen Tom Moody and Dean Jones opined Warner's central problem with that shot was that he began with a low bat position and swung up, when the opposite would better allow him to bring the ball to ground when playing the pull.
Warner's replacement, Khawaja, made a sedate start at the crease. Even though he did not reach the boundary until his 50th delivery his scoring rate was decent because he was putting more effort in finding gaps in the field than he has been reputed for previously.
The left-hander offered a chance with the very next delivery as he tried to drive Taylor and produced a thick edge that flew to gully. Had Jermaine Blackwood anticipated it quicker he would not have had to dive to his right. It was not an easy chance, but a team as badly outclassed as the West Indies are cannot afford to spurn such chances.
From then, it was not until mid-way through the final session that the West Indies looked a realistic chance to take another wicket - and by that stage both batsmen, having passed 100, were chasing their next milestone.
Burns, whose temperament is usually so good, launched wild attempts to drive debutant bowling all-rounder Carlos Brathwaite outside off-stump in three consecutive overs. Fortunately for him he either did not make contact, or when he did it flew over the slips cordon to the boundary. Once that passed, the West Indies' best hope of making serious inroads into Australia's batting order seemed to rest with the second new ball, as beyond Holder and hard-working seamer Brathwaite there was little to be impressed about.
Given the ineffective bowling, the best thing that could be said about the West Indies was that they made a better effort in the field than they did in Hobart.
The best example of this came when the towering Brathwaite made a desperate diving save at fine-leg to deny Burns a boundary.


SCOREBOARD SECOND TEST
AUSTRALIA v WEST INDIES
At MCG
AUSTRALIA
Batsman       Runs   Balls
J BURNS   not out    128   (228)
D WARNER   c Samuels b Taylor  23   (12)
U KHAWAJA  not out    129   (198)
Sundries   (1nb 2lb 3w)   6
Total        286
Fall: 29 (Warner)
Bowling: J Taylor 14-1-69-1, K Roach 10-1-53-0, J Holder
13-5-19-0, C Brathwaite 16-1-60-0, J Warrican 16-1-71-0,
K Brathwaite 4-1-12-0
Overs: 73
Umpires: M Erasmus, C Gaffaney