Sri Lanka lessons bring an Indian masterclass

If India provided the path for Steve Smith's journey back to Test cricket, then it might just be India that enables his ascension to exalted status among Australia's pantheon of talismanic leaders.

Smith's 109, that stood head and body above any innings before or after on the overcooked Pune pitch, will not rate as his most clinical or complete knock, with the caveat being he might have been dismissed five times before celebrating three figures.

If India's fielding was dialled a couple of notches closer to adequate, as they squandered four catching opportunities and a near run-out attempt.

But even if, as is universally expected, the 27-year-old plays at the elite level for the best part of the next decade it's unlikely he'll fashion a more important or emblematic contribution than he did across almost a day in the dry, desert heat of Mumbai's sprawling satellite city today.

In conditions the likes of which no member of his team had previously encountered.

Quick Single: Smith leads from the front with epic ton

Against an opponent rated so vastly superior and so utterly unassailable on their home patch that even legitimate sports bookmakers gave the impression they had already been handed the outcome.

In doing so, becoming just the second Australia batsman this century – after Damien Martyn at Chennai during Australia's only previous series success of the current millennium in 2004 – to score a century in the second innings of a Test in India.

When conditions are even more alien to players raised on the fast and true tracks of the southern hemisphere.

To not just set the tone of a series that loomed as a watershed for a team that has undergone radical restructure and critical scorn in recent months, but to send it spinning on its axis as the unfancied tourists take a 1-0 lead.

"It's gotta be right up there," Smith said at the end of a match that Australia won by a thumping 333-runs when asked to assess his innings against his 17 previous Test centuries.

Quick Single: Loss the reality check India needed, says Kohli

"I obviously rode my luck through the innings and had a few lives, but you need a bit of luck on a wicket like that.

"And I was pleased with myself to score a second innings hundred here in India and formulate some different sort of plans to how I normally play, and problem solve on the spot.

"From that aspect, I'm pleased with myself.

"And it was great that we were able to get such a big lead and give our bowlers plenty to bowl at."

Smith is, by nature, a highly motivated, steely driven young man.

His cricket ethic may even surpass that of his predecessor Michael Clarke, a noted workaholic when it came to preparation and practice.

And the standards he expects of those he leads are uncompromising, as well as unifying and inclusive.

Quick Single: Australia spin way to massive victory

He emerged from the humiliating 0-3 defeat in Sri Lanka last year, where his batters failed abjectly to counter the home team's spinners on dry, turning tracks and their own slow bowlers were unable to land a meaningful counterpunch, bewildered and belittled.

But as he demonstrated so powerfully with bat in hand yesterday and today, he dines out on a challenge and duly sunk his teeth into preparing a squad that might not just compete with India in those same Asian climes, but dare to dream of snatching a win or two.

A template that was first sketched out after the second Test defeat at Galle last July when he floated the notion of 'horses for courses' selections for subsequent touring teams to Asia.

That took further shape with the revamp of personnel after a couple of disastrous losses to South Africa at home last November, which opened the door for fresh personnel unscarred by the trials of cricket in the most foreign landscape.

Quick Single: O'Keefe spins into record books

And finished off with an in-season training camp at Dubai prior to arrival in India, where players underwent some gruelling sessions to acclimatise to the physical environment they were to face as well as the idiosyncratic nature of subcontinental pitches.

And while Smith admits the victory, Australia's biggest (in terms of runs) since they belted England at Lord's on the back of his double century in 2015, didn't arrive without its hiccups he believes the remedial work done after Sri Lanka has been largely successful.

Perhaps even more successful than either he, coach Darren Lehmann or the remainder of their squad had dared imagine.

"I wouldn't say it was perfect," Smith said, already casting his unblinking stare towards the second of the four-Test series at Bangalore starting next Saturday.

"I think we did a lot of things right in this Test match, that's for sure but there's still areas we can improve on.

"In the first innings we probably lost a few (wickets) in clumps.

"For us, it's about continuing to identify those periods in the game when we need to knuckle down and get through and show some fight and resilience and come out the other end of it.

"We know as batters the longer you're out in the middle things get easier.

"It's about trying to find a plan when you first get out there, guys had some good plans throughout this Test match and stuck to them."

Certainly the game face that Smith has worn since he arrived in India almost two weeks ago, to be met by derisive claims from pundits such as former Test spinner Harbhajan Singh that they didn't bring with them a hope of winning a Test, broke into a satisfied smile when the final wicket was claimed.

Quick Single: Pre-series prediction that came back to bite

He now joins 2004's stand-in skipper Adam Gilchrist (Ricky Ponting being absent from the first three Tests of that series with a broken thumb) and Steve Waugh (once in 2001) as the only Australia captains to win a Test in India since the turn of this century.

A vast distance from where he found himself in Sri Lanka, at the helm of a team that entered the campaign as raging favourites and which dominated the opening day of the series only to capitulate in skills and self-belief from that moment on.

With the critical shortcoming being his batters' inability to deal with finger spinners Rangana Herath (left-arm orthodox) and Dilruwan Perera (off-spin) and their capacity to have the ball skid straight on when the Australians believed it was destined to turn.

A misjudgement that meant they found themselves being regularly beaten on the inside of the bat, and therefore susceptible to getting bowled or pinned lbw.

As was the trouble for India's far-more-spin-savvy batters in this Test, during which the hosts lost seven of their 10 second innings wickets to those modes of dismissal.

To the untrained eye, it seemed that Australia's batters were simply beaten time and again by the replica spin threat of Ravi Ashwin (off-spin) and Ravindra Jadeja (left-arm orthodox) who routinely fizzed frustratingly past the outside of probing bats.

But which represented a significant shift for Australia's previous clueless efforts against spin in Sri Lanka, having learned the art of risking an outside edge should the ball deviate as a trade-off for making sure they have the 'straight one' covered.

"We probably kept the foot on the throat," Smith said when asked on the fundamental differences between their consummate first Test effort and their Sri Lanka nightmare.

"When we got ourselves into positions to win in Sri Lanka, we let the opposition get back in the game but in this Test we didn't let India back into the game after our first innings.

"A lot of our right handers, and left handers, got beaten on the outside edge of the bat (in this Test) and those guys (India's spinners) are big spinners of the ball.

"Generally it's the one that goes straight that gets you in a bit of trouble, so it's great that the guys are learning and actually playing for the straight one and allowing one to spin past the bat.

"That's been a big learning curve for us as a team for a while, and it's been great that we've been able to implement that.

"The things that we've practiced and talked about, in the game."

Test Squads

India (for first two Tests): Virat Kohli (c), Murali Vijay, KL Rahul, Cheteshwar Pujara, Ajinkya Rahane, Wriddhiman Saha (wk), Ravichandaran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Ishant Sharma, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Umesh Yadav, Karun Nair, Jayant Yadav, Kuldeep Yadav, Abhinav Mukund, Hardik Pandya.

Australia: Steve Smith (c), David Warner (vc), Ashton Agar, Jackson Bird, Peter Handscomb, Josh Hazlewood, Usman Khawaja, Nathan Lyon, Mitchell Marsh, Shaun Marsh, Glenn Maxwell, Stephen O'Keefe, Matthew Renshaw, Mitchell Starc, Mitchell Swepson, Matthew Wade

Australia's schedule in India

Feb 17-19, Tour match v India A, Mumbai

Feb 23-27, First Test: Australia won by 333 runs, Pune

Mar 4-8, Second Test, Bengaluru

Mar 16-20, Third Test, Ranchi

Mar 25-29, Fourth Test, Dharamsala