Smith ton helps Australia to 300

If Australia finds themselves on the wrong side of the ledger at the end of this most memorable series against India, they will rue a two-hour stint in which they were rolled over by a 22-year-old thrust unexpectedly and unforgettably into his first Test.

Granted initial use of a pitch that produced some spin but was more noteworthy for its pace and true bounce, Australia were bowled out for 300 in 88.3 overs just minutes before stumps.

More than 200 runs and 60 overs shy of the targets they had repeatedly identified as non-negotiable for success in a campaign that has carried them to the cusp of an historic triumph, but which now lies squarely in the hands of their bowlers and fielders.

It’s doubtful an Australia team will find themselves a better opportunity to drive home a rare position of strength on the subcontinent, with India losing their inspirational captain and star batter Virat Kohli to injury and playing catch-up from the moment his replacement Ajinkya Rahane lost the toss and led his team into the field.

But just when the visitors batting needed to stand up and find that 550-plus total that has been their ambition all tour, rookie wrist spinner Kuldeep Yadav sat them on their butts with 4-68 to outbowl his more famous colleagues.

With only Steve Smith – so often and reliably the standout – able to fashion an innings of substance with his 20th Test century in just his 54th match.

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Compelled to make one change when Kohli ruled himself out because of his injured shoulder, and opting for another with a switch of seamers from Ishant Sharma to Bhuvneshwar Kumar, India went back to the policy that had so publicly misfired in Pune.

That is, shedding a batter in favour of a third spinner – in this case, the uncapped wrist spinner effectively replacing the skipper – even though the Dharamsala pitch revealed itself to have more pace and bounce than any in the series to date.

If the opening session, which Australia dominated utterly but for a second-over setback, was to be an early indicator of the day then it looked to be a wise move with the India bowlers surely facing heavy workloads.

Especially with Smith at the wicket, as the world’s premier Test batsman became just the second visiting captain (after ex-England skipper Alastair Cook when India last lost a home series in 2012) to score three Test centuries during a campaign on Indian soil.

But 22-year-old Kuldeep changed the course of the day and possibly the momentum of a wildly fluctuating series with the first ball of his second over after lunch.

That was when he deceived David Warner into trying to cut a ball that spun sharply into him, with the resultant edge pouched smartly by an elated Rahane at slip.

That dismissal, sharply against the trend of the day to that point, set off the clatter of wickets that Australia had feared from the moment they landed in India but hoped would no longer arrive after their heroic final day in Ranchi last Monday.

Image Id: 70947381B7FC4BE88C7F8A6A54B93C12 Image Caption: Kuldeep roars with delight at a maiden Test wicket // BCCI

Four overs later, Shaun Marsh – an architect of that Ranchi rearguard – was gone to a languid flick at what should have stayed an innocuous leg-side waste, and half an hour after that Marsh’s partner in survival a week ago, Peter Handscomb, was bamboozled and bowled by Kuldeep’s stock ball.

When Glenn Maxwell failed to provide adequate cover against a Kuldeep delivery that instead skidded straight on – two balls after he had belted the debutant beyond the mid-wicket rope – Australia had lost 4-47 in barely an hour, and any real hope of that aspirational total as a consequence.

But the chin blow was landed by India’s senior spinner Ravi Ashwin virtually on the stroke of tea, when he claimed the wicket of the man who stood as formidable and unyielding as the novice Test stadium’s hyper-vigilant Himachal Pradesh Police (Kangra Division) against every opposition bowler.

Ashwin sowed doubt in Steve Smith’s mind – as clear as a Himalayan stream throughout this series over which he has cast a monolithic shadow – by fizzing a huge off-break past the bat of left-hander Wade that almost took the head off Rahane at slip, granting the Australians a bye.

The next ball to the right-hander, Smith played a rare hesitant stroke from the crease as if expecting that ball to again turn viciously, only for it to yield no deviation and take the outside edge to the sure-handed Rahane.

That meant Australia had coughed up 5-77 in the space of 30 overs post-lunch in a performance they had hitherto worked so assiduously to avoid, on a pitch they had only dreamed they might encounter on this trip.

It was a glaring contrast to the way the day had begun, and was widely expected to play out.

Leaving aside the disappointment of India’s army of unswerving fans who refused to countenance that Kohli would not be miraculously recovered for this match, Rahane’s start as his nation’s 33rd Test captain could scarcely have been less auspicious.

Losing the toss to hand the Australians first use of the best batting pitch of the series, and then seeing a chance missed off the very first ball of an innings that the home team so desperately needed to begin with early wickets.

When David Warner’s hesitant push at a ball that Kumar angled across the opener flew at speed towards Karun Nair at third slip, who instinctively but unsuccessfully thrust his left hand as it scorched to the fence.

Redemption, of sorts, came in the next over when Kumar’s new-ball partner Umesh Yadav struck an incisive blow with his fourth delivery, jagging it past the inside edge of an atypically fluid forward prod from the usually inscrutable Matthew Renshaw.

Who would have been fired lbw had the ball, that struck him on the knee roll of the front pad flush in line with middle, not rebounded to off-stump.

Celebrations for the removal of Australia’s second-best run scorer of the series were marginally tempered with the realisation it had prematurely brought the visitor’s best batter into the contest earlier than most expected.

And as Smith set about angling and guiding and working and flicking India’s underwhelming bowlers to most parts of the picture perfect stadium, the energy of the home team seemed to flatten as each milestone was hastily ticked off.

Image Id: 491B4558D551481CBAA21D877B5BFC2D Image Caption: Smith and Warner seemed immovable in the first session // BCCI

Smith and Warner’s 50 partnership coming at an ODI rate in the 10th over, the captain’s half-century (from just 67 balls) in the 20th, the pair’s 100 partnership – remarkably their first such union in 47 Tests together – arriving in the 27th.

And then Warner reached his first half-century of the series in the shadows of lunch, a battling innings that was possibly best summed up by the manner in which the benchmark was reached.

The vice-captain misread the second ball that Kuldeep sent down in Test cricket with his attempted cut shot instead yielding a thick edge that again flew wide of slip and off to the boundary rope.

At that point, it seemed unlikely that Kuldeep – the 288th player to be handed an India Test cap – would be the bowler to wield decisive influence on the day.

Not because his two overs prior to lunch showed him to be over-awed or out of his depth, but simply because his fellow left-armer Ravindra Jadeja had stood starkly as the most potent threat on a day one pitch.

A measure of his influence being that – in the space of a couple of overs in the morning session – he spun a couple of balls past the seemingly impenetrable bat of Smith, and even coaxed a mishit from the Australian currently in the rarest of form.

But clearly captain Rahane – or whoever was calling the shots in the India dressing room at the lunch break where they survived a dominant Australia scoresheet of 1-131 from 31 overs – clearly saw something of promise in the wrist spinner.

So it was that Kuldeep was given the ball ahead of Jadeja and Ashwin immediately after the break, and he set about indelibly turning a series that has already born witness to its share of dramatic, unforeseen twists.

Australia's schedule in India

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

Mar 4-8, Second Test, Bengaluru – India won by 75 runs.

Mar 16-20, Third Test, Ranchi – match drawn.

Mar 25-29, Fourth Test, Dharamsala