Warner's 200 powers Australia to 2-416 in Perth

As much as he thrives on the thrill of the grand occasion and the expectation that accompanies the big stage, David Warner might understandably be reluctant to make the shift when future high-profile matches are played at the new multi-purpose stadium now under construction in Perth.

Almost as inevitably as a WACA Test triggers a blast of summer, Warner today made New Zealand’s bowlers pay as well as sweat by bludgeoning a career-best Test score and handing his team an almost unassailable advantage well before the mid-point of this three match series is breached.

Australia ended a day dominated more brutally than many in recent memory at 2-416 with Warner unbeaten on 244 after a stunning 302-run second-wicket partnership with Usman Khawaja (121) and Australia’s top-ranked Test batsman Steve Smith 5no.

Sit back and enjoy Warner's knock

With local lads Adam Voges and Mitchell Marsh listed to follow should any further wickets fall tomorrow.

Along the way, Warner ensured batting records tumbled in much the same way that wickets didn’t.

Quick Single: Warner joins elite company

The fact that the opener barely looked capable of hitting the ball anywhere other than in the middle of his bat and then through a gap in the rapidly far flung field said as much about the rare run of form he finds himself amidst as it did about the uncharacteristically docile WACA pitch.

But anyone who has followed Warner in his international outings at the ground that will be redeveloped into a 15,000 capacity boutique stadium to enable bigger-drawing matches (Ashes, South Africa, ODIs, Big Bash League fixtures) to be played at the nearby Burswood Stadium, would hardly have been surprised.

Even though he’s played just 3.2 Test matches at the venue historically more beloved by opening bowlers than opening batsmen, the 29-year-old now stands alone as the most prolific Test century maker in 45 years of international first-class fixtures.

With the best average (127.60 with likely more to come tomorrow) of any Test batsman to have played there more than once.

His astonishing 180 from 159 balls faced in his maiden Test innings at the ground against India in 2012 was followed by 112 when Australia reclaimed the urn against England in the previous Test at the ground the following year.

Quick single: The good, the bad and the Warner

But in compiling his biggest, longest Test knock so far in a career that is snowballing towards one of the most significant in the lengthy story of Australian cricket, Warner drew clear of esteemed company by being the first to plunder three centuries in the west.

More than the pair of hundreds completed at the WACA by regular attendees Allan Border (16 Tests), Ricky Ponting and Allan Border (11), Justin Langer (10), Adam Gilchrist (9) and Greg Chappell (8).

Throw in the score he managed in his most recent ODI in Perth – the 178 off 133 balls he blasted against Afghanistan in last year’s World Cup – and it can be safely assumed that he would happily package up the soon-to-be-boutique venue in a designer clutch bag and carry it with him.

Although there were some telltale signs throughout day one that WACA curator Matt Page’s pre-game assessment that his pitch would channel the hard and fast spirit of 1970s proved as unreliable as many a memory from that post-psychedelic era.

In the third over, Warner’s opening partner Joe Burns pushed forward to NZ’s fastest bowler Tim Southee – again the most worthy of a largely uninspiring Black Caps attack despite the back problems he suffered during last week’s first Test – and collected a healthy edge.

But to the frustration of the tourists and the disbelief of many who can recollect those legendary WACA tracks of the past, the catch fell comfortably short of a slips cordon that had been drilled to expect chances at head height rather than earthworm level.

WATCH: Highlights from the first session at the WACA

Later in the day, Matt Henry – called into the team to bolster a bowling attack that has flagged in every red ball outing on this tour and now boasts cumulative figures thus far of 15 wickets for 1,764 runs - dug in a bouncer.

Even allowing for Henry’s pace of around 135km/h being several notches below express, the sight of it ballooning off the pitch and Warner (at that stage not out 129) shaping to duck beneath it before realising he had sufficient time to stand up and try to steer it over third man was somewhat disquieting.

The lack of pace in both the pitch and the heat-ravaged, success-starved Kiwis was further exposed when Khawaja came to the crease at 1-101 shortly before lunch, and immediately was off the mark tucking a short ball off his body and behind square for a single.

In days of yore, playing a cross bat shot to the first ball you received against a 23-over-old ball on day one at the WACA was tantamount to heresy.

Or often case, lunacy.

But like Warner, Khawaja is in such fluent form and the NZ bowlers so bereft of options on pitches that offer nothing and with bowlers unable to gain swing or seam that he knew no fear in swinging across the line to the quicks or beyond the boundary off the spinners.

Khawaja’s 121 installed him as the first number three batsman to make centuries in consecutive Tests for Australia since Ricky Ponting more than seven years ago, and has cemented him in the pivotal batting berth for at least the remainder of this summer and very likely for far beyond.

Watch: Another silky ton for Khawaja

With Warner, he was involved in the highest second-wicket partnership for Australia in a home Test with their 302 dwarfed only in their nation’s record books by Don Bradman’s epic 451 with Bill Ponsford at The Oval in 1934.

By contrast, the New Zealanders who travelled across the Tasman with high hopes for an historic series win founded on the potency of their bowling attack must now be looking to the pink ball employed for the upcoming day-night Test in Adelaide for salvation.

Their average per wicket with the red ball of 117.6 would be tough to swallow for the trundlers who will take to park cricket around the country tomorrow, let alone an attack that includes two of the world’s top 10-ranked Test bowlers, Southee and Trent Boult (current Test tour average 143.50)

While injudicious use of the Decision Review System (DRS) and another sizeable portion of ill fortune might mitigate the scarily one-sided scoreline at day’s end, the Black Caps bowling effort might best be characterised by the following.

Watch: Black Caps appeal-fest to no avail

The day’s first over bowled by Southee to Burns – in his third outing as a Test match opener – was a maiden.

They did not bowl another across the 89 overs that followed, on a day that likely determined this Trans-Tasman series.