Australia’s batters entered the first Test with plenty of question marks and they are now exclamation points after a calamitous opening day of the first Test against India.
After rolling the visitors for 150, the Aussies ceded their early advantage with a dramatic top-order collapse to sink to 4-31 and didn’t recover to be 7-67 at stumps.
India’s stand-in skipper Jasprit Bumrah single-handedly dragged India back from the brink of disaster with one of the best bowling spells on Australian soil in many years.
The Indian skipper made the Australian top order look like amateurs with an inspired performance after his batters had collapsed in a heap in Perth.
Questions abound over Aussie batters
It was an unusual situation for Australia leading into the Border-Gavaskar Trophy given that all but Mitch Marsh of their top six had a point to prove.
Nathan McSweeney was looking to show he could translate his stellar middle-order form with South Australia to become a Test opener but he was given a crash course in the very best of Test quality bowing from Bumrah.
He leg-glanced a boundary to get off the mark but after playing and missing, and nicking through slips, he was trapped in front by Bumrah, who wisely reviewed when the debutant was initially given not out on 10.
Marnus Labuschagne should have joined McSweeney in the pavilion later that over but Virat Kohli grassed a regulation catch at second slip.
But the Bumrah momentum was not to be bowed and he removed Usman Khawaja with a beauty which caught the outside edge and then crashed through Steve Smith’s defences for an LBW so plumb that even the notoriously review happy Aussie vice-captain didn’t bother getting a second look.
Jasprit Bumrah celebrates after taking the wicket of Steve Smith. (Photo by Cameron Spencer/Getty Images)
The replay confirmed what everyone at Perth Stadium saw the first time around that middle stump was going to be knocked out.
Travis Head is also starting to stretch the friendship with selectors following a lean 2024 and he did little to restore his reputation with a breezy 11 before Harshit Rana rattled his off stump.
It was a fine delivery but another example of Head’s dusty footwork when he can often be caught between going forward or back and left in no man’s land.
Mitch Marsh never settled and made just six before he edged Mohammed Siraj low down to KL Rahul.
Labuschagne scraped and scrapped his way to two singles from 52 deliveries but he was also caught in front, with Siraj the successful bowler again.
At 6-49, captain Pat Cummins needed to continue his recent trend of scoring runs when they count but he was no match for Bumrah as his opposing skipper came back for a second spell to cause more havoc, finishing the day with 4-17.
“He is the best bowler in the world by far,” said former Australian coach Darren Lehmann on ABC Radio.
Alex Carey (19 not out) and Mitchell Starc (six not out) will resume 83 runs in arrears on day two.
India’s batters fail to adjust to bounce
Bumrah said after the winning the toss that they were happy to have had the rare opportunity to spend more than a week in Perth acclimatising to the foreign conditions.
Judging by the way the team batted, they could have had a month or two getting used to the pace and bounce yet still been all at sea.
Australia bowled brilliantly but the majority of the 10 Indian wickets to fall were due to batters sparring at deliveries best left alone.
Hard hands and playing the ball early is a recipe for nicking off in Perth and the Aussie cordon were always in the game as the top order in particular failed to grasp the concept of the best shot can often be a well judged leave.
Josh Hazlewood celebrates taking the wicket of Virat Kohli. (Photo by Robert Cianflone/Getty Images)
Yashasvi Jaiwal was the first to fall into the trap when he tried to drive Mitchell Starc before he had scored but only succeeded in giving Nathan McSweeney a debut gift in the gully.
Devdutt Padikkal snicked Josh Hazlewood to Alex Carey to also register a duck and when Virat Kohli continued his form slump to go for five, alarm bells were ringing in the touring team’s dressing room at 3-32.
The KL Rahul dismissal looked questionable after third umpire Richard Illingworth ruled the Snicko spike was due to the bat hitting the ball and not the pad of India’s bemused opener.
India needed Dhruv Jurel to be Superman at six but he also fell cheaply, the first of two Mitch Marsh strikes which knocked the stuffing out of the already struggling touring team.
At 6-73, a sub-100 total was looming but Risabh Pant and Nitish Kumar Reddy counter-attacked before the keeper’s attempted on-drive off Pat Cummins went in the opposite direction to Steve Smith’s safe hands at second slip.
Reddy rode his luck after he gloved one to Carey off Starc but the Aussies made a dud review call for the third time on the day by not calling for another look.
Hazlewood cleaned up the tail to claim 4-29 in a superb all-round performance by the local bowling unit.
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