Smith supreme as lead nudges 300

Among the defining characteristics of Test matches played in the stifling surrounds of the Indian subcontinent is the propensity for games to be played out in fast forward.

Quick Single: O'Keefe dines out after skipping lunch

At the close of day two of this opening Test, Australia had compiled a 298-run lead. The visitors 4-143 at stumps with Steve Smith unbeaten on 59, accompanied by Mitchell Marsh on 21.

The sporting nature of India pitches, the speed with which the balls fizzes off the surface and skates across the outfield, the enervating heat and the energy of the crowds can often leave players, commentators and spectators clutching for breath.

Quick Single: SOK delivers after Warne's 'safe' jibe

But in the fabled and often frenetic 84-year history of Test cricket in India it’s doubtful there have been many more sessions of pure pandemonium than that played out between lunch and tea on a bakingly clear afternoon in Pune on day two.

When India folded in a manner not seen on their own turf for almost 50 years, since an infamous 1969 Test against New Zealand in Hyderabad that brought with it crowd riots, pitch preparation controversies and ultimately no result.

There will be an outcome in this series opener, and the nearest a stunned local crowd came to conflagration was when a section of cabling behind the boundary-side LED advertising panels flared into flames and sent black smoke billowing skywards and a terrified ball boy on to the playing arena.

However, questions will be aired about the suitability of the first Test pitch prepared at Pune’s new stadium on which 15 wickets fell for 252 runs on what could well prove the decisive day of this Qantas Tour of India.

A track that was clearly dry and "over-cooked" on Test eve proved, according to some of the Australia batsmen chatting at breakfast this morning, as difficult to negotiate as any they’ve experienced on day one.

And was nothing less than a minefield come day two, traditionally the optimum time for batting on a Test pitch, when India lost an extraordinary 6-35 to the left-hand of spinner Steve O’Keefe to be skittled for 105.

Handing the Australians, who had been derided in some quarters for the inadequacy of their first innings that was wrapped up in the morning’s first over for 260, a lead that by stumps had been extended within a whisker of 300.

With Smith already completing the most important half-century of his captaincy to date, and the prospect of a defining milestone looming tomorrow.

Image Id: 616AFF2D872C42EEB53E34D98C27216B Image Caption: Steve Smith salutes his second-innings fifty // BCCI

Contained within the day’s startling bottom line were any number of sub-plots, and events that are bound to resonate loudly as the final three Tests play out in Bangalore, Ranchi and Dharamsala.

For a start, there was Australia’s decision to follow India’s lead – not surprisingly, given the crumbling deck that was dissolving further by the hour – to open the bowling with left-arm spinner Steve O’Keefe.

To overlook Josh Hazlewood, the most successful bowler of a turbulent home summer just gone, was not altogether surprising but to skip front-line spinner Nathan Lyon was perhaps an eyebrow raiser.

Quick Single: India caught out as Aussies fire in the field

One former India Test batsman, upon seeing footage of O’Keefe bowling in last week’s warm-up match against India A in Mumbai, remarked that he looked “like a club bowler”.

Which is precisely what the 31-year-old became last month when he opted out of the KFC Big Bash League to work on his red-ball bowling with Sydney grade team Manly-Warringah.

An assessment shared by former Test leg spinner Shane Warne who had overlooked the left-arm orthodox in favour of uncapped leg spinner Mitchell Swepson in the preferred Test XI he named prior to the match starting.

O’Keefe’s opening spell was unthreatening, but so too was his new-ball partner Mitchell Starc who went without taking a wicket in his opening overs in Asian conditions for the first time in recent memory.

Image Id: ACA4DEF0DB3B409CB48877F04090475E Image Caption: Josh Hazlewood celebrates Australia's first wicket // BCCI

But the introduction of Hazlewood brought the initial breakthrough, and when Starc banged in an effort ball that caught Cheteshwar Pujara by surprise and had him caught behind the wicket the second sub-plot unwound.

With stunning brevity, for barely had the calamity that accompanied India skipper Virat Kohli to the middle subsided to merely euphoric than he was on his return walk.

To an eerie silence in the stadium, save for the bubbling self-belief of the Australians who had fed Kohli’s ego by offering him a full, wide delivery that slid across him and he obligingly edged safely to first slip.

With a lunch score of 3-70 and a deficit below 200, there was debate over the dahl as to which team had taken the honours in the morning stanza.

A conversation rendered redundant in the ensuing 15.1 overs after the break, when O’Keefe ran amok and India fell repeated victim to the idiosyncrasies of a pitch had Smith described pre-match as being like none other he had previously seen.

Quick Single: 7 for 11: Thirty-eight minutes of carnage

The procession started with another curious twist, the dismissal of opener KL Rahul who had looked as comfortable as any batter to have appeared on the desiccated centre stage to that point and had cruised to 64 with a series of swishing cover drives and deft work by foot and wrist.

For whatever reason, perhaps lulled by the uncomplimentary critiques of O’Keefe’s weaponry, he charged headlong at a flighted delivery that he tried to pummel over the leg side only to miscue badly to long-off.

And somehow inflict what looked to be major damage to his left rotator cuff in the process, such was the ferocity of his swing and the time it took him to drag himself from his pain-stricken crouch and leave the field.

The carnage that dismissal unleased was as unforeseen as it was unlikely given the threat O’Keefe had posed from the opposite end of the ground earlier in the day.

Two balls later he had India’s last specialist batter Ajinkya Rahane caught at slip by a ball that caught the leading edge, and a further two deliveries hence he sent back Wriddhiman Saha who was caught off the leg of keeper Matthew Wade.

At that point India had lost 3-1 in the space of one potentially series-changing over and carried the look of a battered boxer feeling for the ropes as so many touring teams have come to experience in their bouts with the subcontinent.

And unlike last year’s tour to Sri Lanka where Australia repeatedly found themselves in match-winning positions only to let the lower half of the opposition batting post a total, they pushed on with intent.

Quite murderous, as it proved.

Next over Ravi Ashwin, elevated to No.6 in recognition of the fact he’s averaged 50-plus with the bat in each of India’s three previous Test campaigns this season, was smartly caught off his boot from the bowling of Lyon.

Three runs later O’Keefe was back, luring Jayant Yadav to stretch from his crease for Wade to complete a clever stumping, then tempting his left-arm spin rival Ravindra Jadeja to try a glory shot that instead brought ignominy.

Quick Single: O'Keefe bags six as India lose 7-11

And when he mopped up the innings to claim Test-best figures of 6-35 he resisted any urge to salute the commentators’ eyrie and had sent down a post-lunch spell of 6-11 from 6.1 overs.

Any suggestion that the game might return to normal speed were scotched when David Warner, opening alongside Shaun Marsh with his regular partner Matt Renshaw still indisposed, reverse swept Ashwin’s second offering of the innings to the boundary.

One more four and then Warner was gone at the end of over one, adjudged lbw in the now familiar manner of a batter playing for an explosion off the minefield and instead undone by a smoke bomb.

The same means that accounted for Marsh whose 21-ball duck underscored the perils of pure survival in such a fraught environment.

But finally, in the lengthening shadows of a glorious Pune evening, some normality was found.

Largely through the consummate batting of Smith who is quite clearly driven by the challenge that now offers glimmers of previously unimaginable hope.

In concert with Peter Handscomb (19), Renshaw (31 and the very real scare of a broken right arm after being struck by Umesh Yadav), and allrounder Mitchell Marsh whose unbeaten 21 might well provide the turning point of his Test career.

If he can push his team closer to an historic win tomorrow.