Disappointed to miss Kohli's wicket: Head

Australia were disappointed to miss out on the prized wicket of Virat Kohli on a tough opening day of the third Test, said Travis Head, stressing on the need to make the still-hard Kookaburra ball count in the second morning.

Kohli was dropped on 47 by Australian skipper Tim Paine during Mitchell Starc's brilliant over towards the end of the innings.

"... the best over today was from Starc. Beating Kohli inside and outside, that new ball hopefully can come out and do that tomorrow again. It was disappointing to leave that chance but it happens," Head said on Wednesday.

Australian bowlers had to toil hard as India finished at 215-2 with Kohli (47) and Cheteshwar Pujara (68) remaining unbeaten at stumps, following Mayank Agarwal's 161-ball 76 on debut early in the day.

"We would have liked to have 4-5 wickets tonight, but it is a massive morning and if we can still get them down two wickets in the morning, it will be good while the ball is still reasonably hard and a couple left handers coming later on," he said.

"Hopefully as the game goes on we will get more spin, but we have been able to restrict a lot of runs today even though we didn't get the wickets we would have liked. It makes for an exciting morning and momentum can change."