Aussies battle hard to gain slim advantage

Like a mirage in desert dryness, the emphatic batting performance that Australia craves as tangible evidence of the Test team’s rebirth shimmered tantalisingly at times today, but ultimately remained frustratingly beyond grasp.

Afforded first use of the Perth Stadium’s maiden Test pitch that similarly revealed its true nature after an illusory first session, Australia defied recent history and foreshadowed outcomes by posting a century opening stand against India before ending day one 6-277.

Doomsday prophets who predicted the well-grassed pitch, when baked by searing temperatures, would provide manna for fast bowlers and migraines for batters were left pondering their predictive powers after the opening session showed it to be largely benign.

But after newly capped opener Marcus Harris (70) underpinned his team’s top-order retort to a couple of indifferent efforts in last week’s Domain Series opener, the Perth pitch bared its teeth and the home team underwent a now familiar clatter of wickets.

It was only an 84-run fifth-wicket partnership between Shaun Marsh and Travis Head that prevented India from taking the day’s honours, after claiming a 1-0 series lead last week.

Having opted for a quartet of seamers in the belief the pitch would yield extravagant pace and bounce, India might have justifiably despaired when neither of those characteristics showed in the first session as Harris and Aaron Finch reached an authoritative 0-112.

Then, as the temperature rose and the pitch stewed, batting became increasingly fraught with some deliveries screaming off the surface seemingly at warp speed while others deviated from cracks that were already proving problematic.

The frustration that Australia likely felt at the loss of their best-performed middle-order pair Marsh (45) and Head (58) as shadows colonised the ground will be mitigated by the realisation that batting will become undeniably tougher as the match plays out.

And that India will be required to undertake that task last, by which time (on the basis of tonight’s evidence) it might well be verging on impossible.

On match eve, Australia skipper Tim Paine had conceded that losing the coin toss might prove a blessing, given the vexed choice between batting first on a hostile track or sending bowlers out into forecast 38C heat.

When that decision became his to make, Paine made the logical call and by lunch break it was looking inspired.

Perhaps more pointedly, the green-tinged strip did not reveal the venom most pundits had expected pre-game, while India’s seamers appeared less threatening than they had on the more placid Adelaide pitch a week earlier.

There were moments – most noticeably when Jasprit Bumrah found a probing length against Finch and routinely beat the opener’s outside edge – that the anticipated domination of ball over bat threatened to manifest.

But more often, Australia’s first pair were able to let balls alone on the basis of width or length, and although runs didn’t flow unabated they began to accumulate at a rate not possible in the series to date.

That return neared four per over when Australia took their first misstep, Finch pinned on the crease by Mohammad Shami whose unsuccessful appeal for lbw was quickly referred by India captain Virat Kohli.

The speculative review betraying an anxiety among the tourists who had rarely looked likely to achieve a breakthrough in the first hour in conditions that were supposed to aid the quicks.

However, confirmation that the ball would have cleared the stumps meant the only item in the India bowlers’ column come the welcome drinks break was the lost referral.

The only other opportunity the tourists were able to create during the first session was Kohli’s attempted run-out, when Finch misjudged the India skipper’s speed and dexterity at extra cover and nearly paid the price.

The 66-run first-wicket stand posted by lunch quickly grew beyond 100 in the ensuing half-hour, when the new pitch began to exhibit some distinctive traits from the old WACA Ground.

There was a demonstrable increase in the speed at which the ball flew from the surface as the residual moisture evaporated in the early afternoon heat, and the delivery from Shami that barely bounced shin-high to Harris betrayed the role that cracks will play.

That was also the time that some familiar frailties appeared in Australia’s top-order batting.

Having survived another lbw shout from Bumrah, Finch departed a ball later when he opted to whip the seamer through square leg rather than offer the full bat face for a push down the ground, and his failure to make contact cost his wicket.

That memorabilia moment – the first wicket to fall in a Test at Test cricket’s newest venue – markedly changed the mindset of the two combatants, as well as the complexion of the contest.

Buoyed by their success as the temperature pushed past 35C and their decision not to employ a specialist spinner had loomed as costly, India found stride and narrowed their focus at Australia’s number three, Usman Khawaja.

The left-hander has spent time at the crease in each of his innings of the Domain Series to date, but so disciplined has India’s attack plan been that Khawaja’s rate of scoring has been as low as at any time in his elegantly fluid Test batting to date.

That containment strategy again paid dividends today, as Khawaja saw a delivery aimed marginally wide as a chance to break the shackles but instead top-edged a catch to keeper Rishabh Pant.

Although the additional pace and unmistakable bounce that contributed to Khawaja’s downfall paled alongside the delivery that accounted for Harris.

As the sole recognised spinner in India’s starting XI, all-rounder Hanuman Vihari was expected to send down a few overs of modest tweakers to help India increase their over-rate and to provide a measure of relief for the heat-stressed quicks.

Vihari’s initial spell began in a blaze of ignominy when his first two deliveries were dispatched to the boundary, but with the second delivery of his subsequent effort he provided the day’s talking point.

Operating around the wicket to left-hander Harris who, like Vihari, is playing just his second Test, the spinner’s first offering bounced more than the opener anticipated yet gave no real indication of what was to come.

The following ball was fired in at Harris, and as he rocked back to aim a cut shot into the inviting gap behind point, the ball reared at him like an aggrieved swan and the batter found himself with no option other than to parry an instinctive self-preservation bunt to slip.

The crowd of around 20,000 was only marginally less stunned by the sight of the opener – who had negotiated four quicks on a pacy pitch with little unease – being bounced out by a spinner than was Harris himself.

And when Peter Handscomb’s troubles endured, despite the lengthy tutorial he had received from coach Justin Langer in the days prior to the Test starting, the advantage so hard-won by Australia in the opening session was in danger of being lost.

Handscomb was another obvious victim of the change that came over the Perth pitch, when a delivery angled in by Ishant Sharma – whose pace had been significantly reduced from what he showed in Adelaide – flew from high on the bat to the right of second slip.

At first, Handscomb might have thought he had collected a welcome boundary as the ball seemed destined to escape Kohli’s outstretched right hand.

But the India skipper levitated himself to a position where he was able to snatch the catch as it hurtled past him, and a day that had offered his team little but sweat and pain throughout the opening session had suddenly returned to parity.

Australia XI: Aaron Finch, Marcus Harris, Usman Khawaja, Shaun Marsh, Peter Handscomb, Travis Head, Tim Paine (c), Pat Cummins, Mitchell Starc, Nathan Lyon, Josh Hazlewood.

India XI: KL Rahul, M Vijay, Cheteshwar Pujara, Virat Kohli (c), Ajinkya Rahane, Hanuma Vihari, Rishabh Pant (wk), Ishant Sharma, Mohammed Shami, Jasprit Bumrah, Umesh Yadav.

Domain Test Series v India

Dec 6-10: First Test, Adelaide Oval, India won by 31 runs

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