Brave Bravo keeps Australia at bay

On a day when records tumbled through the morning session with greater freedom and regularity than did the pesky showers that punctuated the afternoon, Australia ruthlessly took hold of the first Test against the West Indies in Hobart.

Adam Voges and Shaun Marsh established new benchmarks with virtually every scoring shot, of which there were numerous in their 449-run partnership that expunged such names as Bradman, Barnes, Ponting and Clarke from the record books along the way.

Then, as the heavy clouds blew through and the wind that whipped off the Derwent River took the temperature dangerously close to single figures (centigrade), the declaration sprung by Steve Smith surprised the West Indies almost as much as the crowd that had anticipated a further batting feast after lunch.

At the close of day two, the tourists are not simply adrift but seemingly beyond the point of rescue at 6-207, carrying a deficit of 376 on the first innings.

Only the elegant defiance of Darren Bravo, an unabashed devotee of former West Indies great Brian Lara who has modelled his technique and his mannerisms on his famous Trinidadian cousin, halted Australia’s relentless steamrolling.

Bravo finished the day unbeaten on 94, finding an unlikely ally in fast bowler Kemar Roach who – like his new ball partner Jerome Taylor – went wicketless in Australia’s mammoth innings but hung about for more than 25 overs with the bat to post a resolute rearguard 91 for the seventh wicket.

WATCH: Bravo stands tall for Windies

But they confront a sizeable task to save the game, given they are a player down with their fastest bowler Shannon Gabriel likely to be ruled out of the remainder of this game and quite possibly the three-Test Commonwealth Bank Series with an ankle injury that may or may not involve a fracture.

The greatest urgency the West Indies showed on a day when they looked unlikely to take a solitary wicket with ball and hand and unable to defend one through their top-order batting was when the squally rain spells scudded across the ground, the sign for the visitors to make for the sheds.

If not for two notable performances – Bravo’s batting and left-arm spinner Jomel Warrican (3-150 from 28 overs) – then the scenario currently facing the West Indies would be significantly more abject than its current status of ‘dire’.

By the same token, Australia’s position of supremacy can be sheeted home to a couple of individual efforts as Voges (269 not out) and Marsh (who holed out for 182 shortly before the lunchtime declaration was enacted) carried on untroubled from where they left off Thursday evening.

From the overnight tally of 3-438, which had already seen them put together a partnership of 317, the middle-order duo that seems unlikely to be reunited in the current series when injured number three Usman Khawaja returns for Boxing Day, pushed onward, ever onward.

WATCH: Highlights of Adam Voges' double-century

Past the previous highest partnership seen in a Hobart Test - Ricky Ponting and Michael Clarke’s 352 against Pakistan in 2010.

Beyond Don Bradman and Bill Ponsford’s mark for the largest fourth-wicket stand for Australia, their 388 against England at Leeds in 1934.

Leaving behind the Bradman-Sid Barnes partnership of 405 set against England in 1946-47 that had stood for almost seven decades as the biggest single stand for any wicket on Australian soil.

And then eclipsing Sri Lankan duo Mahela Jayawardene and Thilan Samaraweera’s all-time fourth-wicket record for all comers of 437, plundered against Pakistan in 2009.

It was also the heftiest partnership that any pair of Test batsmen have fashioned against the West Indies for any wicket in the collective of Caribbean nations’ 87-year Test cricket history.

And the total on which Smith eventually called time during the interval – 4(dec)-583 – is the biggest Australia has amassed against the West Indies since the 9-605 they compiled on a lifeless deck in Bridgetown in 2003.

Around the time the decline of West Indian cricket was starting to gather pace.

WATCH: Shaun Marsh's Test best 182

Had Smith opted to bat on against an attack that was as bereft of spirit, energy and direction on a cold blustery Friday as it had been throughout the calm, sunny Thursday that preceded it, then Australia’s all-time high against the West Indies (the 8-758 scored in Jamaica in 1955) would have been potentially toppled.

Some might argue that was a certainty, even with visiting skipper Jason Holder deploying six fielders on the boundary rope (and the remaining three in a curious cordon spanning backward point) as Voges and Marsh took to Warrican with brutal expansiveness with lunch looming.

Almost as inevitable as the top-order collapse suffered by a West Indian top-order that carries extra responsibility given their decision to load up with five specialist bowlers, although that number is now pruned to four with Gabriel’s enforced absence.

WATCH: First session highlights from day two

The wisdom of gambling on four seamers was exposed by the fact the most dangerously incisive Australia bowler, as the tourists slumped to 5-89 in just over a session of resigned batting, was finger spinner Nathan Lyon.

After Josh Hazlewood had pinned opener Kraigg Brathwaite in front for two, Lyon grabbed three wickets in a stretch of as many overs from the Derwent Estuary end where fast bowlers have battled for rhythm trundling up the slight slope and into the significantly stiffer breeze.

The first was a slight-of-arm ball that went on straight, the only deviation coming from the healthy edge that opener Rajendra Chandrika found and which Smith juggled but ultimately tamed at slip.

The second was a rare bowling highlight in a match dominated by the bat, an acrobatic launch to the left that netted Lyon a memorable return catch from a mistimed drive by the pathologically languid Marlon Samuels.

WATCH: Lyon reels in a Marlon

And the third came via a sharp catch by Joe Burns at short leg, whose early summer weakness in the close catching position has morphed into a strength in the same way that his maiden century in Brisbane a month ago has given way to a lean trot.

However, the most telling dismissal was Hazlewood’s second, a ball to former West Indies captain Denesh Ramdin that pitched back of a length but failed to bounce more than mid-shin high and hurtled into the disgruntled batsman’s off stump.

Foreshadowing the first misbehaviour of a pitch that has shown none of characteristics associated with the greenish tinge it continues to carry.

There was significantly more doubt about the subsequent end of Ramdin’s successor as skipper, when Holder was adjudged lbw to a Peter Siddle delivery that looked to the naked eye – and was later confirmed by ball-tracking technology – to be bouncing over leg stump.

WATCH: Second session highlights from day two

But such is Holder’s addled state of mind having marshalled his at times recalcitrant troops through a forgettable couple of days, he opted not to utilise a review even though he was the last recognised batsman thought capable of hanging about with Bravo.

Until Roach showed some mettle, outscoring all but Bravo among his specialist batting peers.

Australia: Steve Smith (c), David Warner, Joe Burns, Adam Voges, Shaun Marsh, Mitchell Marsh, Peter Nevill, Peter Siddle, James Pattinson, Josh Hazlewood, Nathan Lyon. Nathan Coulter-Nile (12th man).

West Indies: Jason Holder (c), Kraigg Brathwaite, Rajendra Chandrika, Darren Bravo, Marlon Samuels, Jermaine Blackwood, Denesh Ramdin, Kemar Roach, Jerome Taylor, Jomel Warrican, Shannon Gabriel. Carlos Brathwaite (12th man).