Gavaskar on Day I of 1st Test | Watch full analysis

New Delhi: Indian batting legend Sunil Gavaskar says India will have to bag early wickets on the second day of the first Test to wrest back the initiative in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy against Australia in Bangalore.

Australia, who won the toss, ended the first day on a satisfactory note by scoring 254 for the loss of four wickets on Thursday.

Speaking to CNN-IBN, Gavaskar picked out Australian captain Ricky Ponting for special praise for his first century on Indian soil. "Ponting is a class act. You could see from the way he celebrated his hundred as to how much it meant to him. But it was only a matter of time that he erased his poor record in India with a century."

The former India captain, however, added that a good start to the series for Ponting could mean warning signals for the hosts.

"Ponting has got a century in the first innings of the first Test itself, which can only mean ominous signs for India."

Gavaskar noticed a change of approach in Australia's batting. "The Australians always like to dominate. But knowing that they had lost (Matthew) Hayden early, they approached the game differently, and waited for their chances to score patiently."

Famed Australian cricket writer Peter Roebuck also pointed out Australia's change of style, and said that it was a conscious effort.

"Australia didn't come into this series with too many ODIs behind them, hence they were circumspect. Also they had lost Hayden early, so they chose not to take too many risks, and graft.

"There was a sense of mission in the way Ponting and Simon Katich went about their partership. They knew they had great dragons to slay in the form of a formidable Indian bowling attack," he said.

Gavaskar though praised Indian bowling spearhead Zaheer Khan for his effforts on the first day. "He tried to do everything. He experimented, he reverse swung the ball, he came from around the wicket. And he ended up picking up two important wickets in Hayden and Clarke," he said of Zaheer's two scalps in his first and final overs of the day.