World turns with India on top

So sharply has cricket’s axis of influence swung over the past six months that India entered the final day of the just-completed Test as if they were tackling Australia at Ahmedabad rather than Adelaide.

For so long – seven decades, as history attests – India teams have ventured to Australia and been exposed as meek imitations of the outfits that rule so ruthlessly on their home patch.

Yet the hard-edged character they have cultivated under skipper Virat Kohli, which has intersected neatly with the turmoil reducing Australia’s men’s team to its raw essence, now sees them swagger into territory where previously they were tentative.

Kohli revealed as much in the aftermath of India’s ultimately convincing 31-run win that was rendered a little more fraught than the final margin suggests by dint of some plucky lower-order batting from the home team’s tailenders.

In the immediate aftermath of that result, Kohli delighted in pointing out that never before has an India touring team won a Test series in Australia.

In truth, they had previously won just five times from 44 starts dating back to 1947, and it was only in three of those preceding 11 campaigns that those wins came in ‘live’ Tests that potentially influenced a series’ outcome.

But what was potentially more instructive was Kohli’s insights as to the tactics they took into the final day of the first Domain Series Test at the Adelaide Oval today, and how they were framed around the disposition of their opponents.

In short, India believed Australia’s batters would be timid and hesitant in pursuit of the 219 runs that yawned between them and a final-day victory, with only six wickets available to them in that cause.

Consequently, Kohli opened with his most experienced bowling combination – seamer Ishant Sharma who was pilloried at series’ outset because of his poor Test record in Australia, and off-spinner Ravi Ashwin who was similarly dismissed as a threat due to indifferent returns here.

The India captain’s rationale was that he didn’t want Australia’s incumbent batting pair Shaun Marsh and Travis Head to find easy runs and thereby build a belief that India sensed was demonstrably absent in the home team to that point.

“If you look at the whole day, they were playing with the mindset that they were up against it,” Kohli assessed of his rivals, citing the dismissal of Head in the day’s seventh over when he was surprised by a bouncer from Ishant.

“As a batsman, you understand that if you’re not playing with positive intent, you can nick off at any stage.

“And that’s exactly what happened with those guys – they were not ready, or maybe Travis was not expecting Ishant to suddenly bowl short on him.

“We started with Ishant and Ash (Ashwin) this morning was because we wanted to set a template where the scoring was one-and-a-half, maybe two runs per over max and then build on that.

“Because we didn’t want them to gain momentum and be positive from ball one.”

The notion of a bowling attack sensing uncertainty in a foe and zeroing in on such frailties is hardly novel in Test matches played in Australia, but almost exclusively in recent memory it has been the home team doing the zeroing.

In the end, it was as much a lack of intent as shortcomings in the respective teams’ skills sets that cost Australia the Test.

So pinned down were their specialist batters in the fourth innings, when it was agreed the Adelaide pitch was probably at its best for batting, that wickets were surrendered rather than surgically excised.

Witness Marcus Harris’s ambitious cut shot; Usman Khawaja’s frantic attempt to loft down the ground; Peter Handscomb’s miscued pull that cost Australia its top-order on the fourth evening.

All of them the result of India’s suffocating bowling pressure that compelled Australia’s batters to search for methods that might bring runs, and temporary relief.

The very recipe that had brought the demise of so many touring teams in Australia over the past quarter of century, where only South Africa (three times) and England (once) have pocketed series wins.

To complete the inversion of conventional thinking, Kohli’s men head to Perth tomorrow bubbling with confidence given the practice and intelligence they have gained from their first Test hit-out in Australia conditions.

In times past, touring teams have relished the prospect of facing Australia’s inevitable retinue of fearsome fast bowlers on a Perth pitch in the same way that curmudgeons embrace Christmas.

But now that Test matches have been moved away from the WACA Ground and the pitch at the new Optus Stadium remains something of an unknown, the visitors can’t board their west-bound flight quickly enough.

For their part, the Australians were also casting forward to the Perth Test starting on Friday with captain Tim Paine foreshadowing that the new venue’s pitch “is going to be really fast” according to whispers he has heard.

For that reason, he dismissed the criticism directed at his strike bowler Mitchell Starc during the course of the first Test and noted that Australia’s selectors had nominated a 14-man squad for the opening two Domain Tests, which means no changes in personnel.

Given that it was Paine’s arrival at the crease in today’s opening half hour that brought a more urgent, authoritative edge to Australia’s batting, he also indicated there were lessons his top-order might learn from the efforts of the tailenders who pushed India almost to the brink.

Paine’s innings of 41 from 73 balls was characterised by an ability to push the ball into gaps in the field rather than engage in sheet-anchor defence, to scramble hard for extra runs as he sprinted between the stumps, and to show a preparedness to take the attack to India’s dominant quicks.

A ploy that ultimately brought him undone when he also mishit a pull shot, but one that could have potentially carried Australia to a most unlikely win had he prospered for an additional hour or so.

“We've got some things we need to tighten up, and some areas  we know we can,” Paine conceded at match’s end.

“I don’t think many people thought we’d get as close as we did today, and certainly didn’t think we’d win, but we have a lot of faith particularly in our lower-order.

“We bat pretty deep.

“Our whole bowling attack, you see those four (Starc, Pat Cummins, Nathan Lyon and Josh Hazlewood) together, and how much playing for Australia means to them.

“Whether they've got the bat, ball, or in the field, you can't question those four guys' commitment.

“They have a red-hot crack for every single ball.

“That's what we're building to, and that's the style of cricket we want to play.

“They're some of our more experienced players, I think the more they do that, the more it will rub off on the rest of this group.”

Tail-enders providing batting guidance for the top-order – it really is a parallel universe.

Domain Test Series v India

Dec 6-10: First Test, Adelaide Oval

Dec 14-18: Second Test, Perth Stadium

Dec 26-30: Third Test, MCG

Jan 3-7: Fourth Test, SCG

Australia squad: Tim Paine (c, wk), Josh Hazlewood (vc), Mitch Marsh (vc), Pat Cummins, Aaron Finch, Peter Handscomb, Marcus Harris, Travis Head, Usman Khawaja, Nathan Lyon, Shaun Marsh, Peter Siddle, Mitchell Starc, Chris Tremain

India squad: Virat Kohli (c), Murali Vijay, KL Rahul, Prithvi Shaw, Cheteshwar Pujara, Ajinkya Rahane, Hanuma Vihari, Rohit Sharma, Rishabh Pant (wk), Parthiv Patel (wk), Ravi Ashwin, Ravi Jadeja, Kuldeep Yadav, Mohammed Shami, Ishant Sharma, Umesh Yadav, Jasprit Bumrah, Bhuvneshwar Kumar