Which would you prefer, Test cricket aficionados - a wicket every 23 deliveries in the first three innings or every 82 deliveries on the first day? Would you choose a game that's decided just more than two hours after tea on the second day or a match that, at stumps on the first, looks like it might last into a fourth?

You know where this is going, wise and gentle reader. But why don't we sustain this ruse for another paragraph...

Would you have preferred to be in the vast cauldron of banal nowhereness that you have to keep reminding yourself is called Perth Stadium for the first Ashes Test, or amid the moody hills of Guwahati and the distinctive tented tops of Barsapara Stadium for the opening day of the second Test between India and South Africa?

As exhilarating as Australia's eight-wicket win over England on Saturday was, it was more TikTok cricket than Test cricket. "Bazball without brains," was how Nasser Hussain described England's batting in the first innings. BBC radio presenters relished the opportunity to have a proper English whinge about the same. To the extent that you could hear more disappointment creeping into their voices at the fall of every cheap Australian wicket. Oh no! We can't moan as much as we could a few minutes ago!

The pitch, while challenging, wasn't the problem. Stupid strokes played in defiance of the conditions were the issue. But you can bet your bottom Aussie dollar or UK pound that had the match been played anywhere except in Australia or England, the ICC pitch police would have finalised their charge sheet by now.

Guwahati's surface was similarly blameless on Saturday, and we saw our fair share of silly strokes. But what we watched was unmistakably Test cricket. It ebbed, it flowed, it took hard work to make something happen. It left all involved needing a good night's rest because they know they will have to do it all again tomorrow and, at least, the day after that.

Which isn't to say what happened in Guwahati wasn't intense and exciting. It was. But, unlike in Perth, it was also absorbing and left us wanting more.

That was welcome in the wake of the Eden Gardens Test last week, when a pitch of farcically inconsistent bounce threatened to derail the match as a credible contest. It didn't because the South Africans found ways to defend a target of 123 and win a Test in India for the first time in nine attempts spread over almost 16 years. Now they are a win or a draw away from claiming a series in India for only the second time in their eight rubbers there.

"It's definitely a better pitch for batting," Tristan Stubbs told a post-play press conference. "You can bat time, but you look up and the scoreboard's sort of gone nowhere."

Hence the suspense. Having made it almost to the end of the first session with all their wickets intact, South Africa lost Aiden Markram and Ryan Rickelton in the space of four deliveries. There was no further damage until the last session, when four wickets tumbled for 80 runs.

When bad light ended play 8.1 overs early, India were the happier team - they had limited South Africa to 247/6 despite Markram, Rickelton, Tristan Stubbs and Temba Bavuma all batting long enough to reach and pass 30.

Stubbs needed one more run to score his second half-century in four completed innings when he stubbed his bat abruptly at Kuldeep Yadav and was taken at slip. That half-century, which grew to 76, was scored in Rawalpindi last month. It is Stubbs' only 50 in 13 innings, and he scored it batting at No. 3 - like he did on Saturday. Ten of his other 11 trips to the crease have been taken as a No. 4, 5 or six. He averages 43.80 as a No. 3 with a next best of 23.37 as a No. 4. He's a No. 3, surely?

"I think I prefer batting at three compared to anywhere else," Stubbs told a television interviewer. He was returned to the theme at his presser.

"It's not the easiest moving around [the batting order], but I'm just happy to be in the team. I've worked a lot on my defence. I had to, coming into the side as a white-ball player and then being asked to bat three. I find at three you can afford to be a little bit more defensive, whereas at five and six you have to come in and take the game on earlier. At three you're more mental than technical, and maybe you rein in your scoring options."

Tony de Zorzi was two runs away from joining the 30 club when he hung out his bat to the fourth delivery bowled with the new ball - sent down by Mohammed Siraj - and was smartly caught by a diving Rishabh Pant.

Four deliveries later Rod Tucker and Richard Kettleborough decided the light had faded beyond acceptable limits. De Zorzi is a fair-minded man, but Tucker and Kettleborough would do well to steer clear of him for a while.

Even so, credit is due Pant, who is captaining India in the absence of the injured Shubman Gill. Between overs, as the 80th loomed and the gloom descended, Pant consulted with Jasprit Bumrah, presumably about deploying the new ball. Would the umpires take them off immediately that happened if a seamer bowled? Would the hard, shiny, swingy new nut be better preserved for the morning? Essentially, was it worth the gamble of taking it in the dark? It was worth it, as was proved.

De Zorzi's dismissal tilted the balance in India's favour, but the match remains poised. With Senuran Muthusamy and Kyle Verreynne at the crease, and Marco Jansen to come, South Africa have the resources to reclaim the advantage. In Bumrah and Kuldeep Yadav, India have the bowlers to stop that from happening.

There's nuance in that equation, as there is in what Stubbs had to say about batting at first drop. And as there wasn't during cyclone Perth.

If you survived that, even through a screen, you would be forgiven for wondering how much more cricket on cocaine you can stand. Or you could change the channel - the good stuff is in Guwahati.