2 weeks Ago By Greg Baum
At the toss, Australian captain Pat Cummins named his team: “Nathan McSweeney, and all the regulars.” Pithily, it summed up Australia’s almost imperial stability, to set alongside a piebald Indian team coming off a whitewash by New Zealand at home, missing or overlooking four stars and featuring two debutants and another in only his second Test, led by a delegate. The day became an exploration of what constitutes regular and irregular in Test cricket nowadays, and when it was done, India had its strut back and Australia knew it had a series on its hands.
At this rate, this series will be a five-Test whirlwind. India outgunning Australia in Australia, it has to be acknowledged, is the new black. If Australia had expected normal service to resume, they were rudely disabused.
Usman Khawaja trudges off, dismissed by a red-hot Jasprit Bumrah. Credit: Getty Images At one level, this was business as usual in Test cricket in Perth, where you have always had to have your wits about you. As has been well-reported, balls and pitches across the country are livelier than previously.
This is the new regular, and mostly it’s a good thing. Jasprit Bumrah thinks so. Australia’s ageless seam attack, abetted by sometime all-rounder Mitch Marsh, took all the wickets as India were shot out for 150.
Mitch Starc set the standard, bowling dozens of unplayable balls, which was normal, and not wasting one, which was not. The twist here is that Marsh is a reluctant all-rounder, proxying here for the injured Cameron Green, and had not taken two wickets in a Test inning since 2019. Virat Kohli tried to force his way back into form by batting down the pitch, hoping to smother the movement, but instead leaving himself helpless against Josh Hazlewood’s lifter .
His failure was par lately. KL Rahul lost out to a catch behind and a DRS controversy, a regular irregularity. To my mind, there were two spikes on Snickometer – one sharp, one blunt – so he was out either way.
In the end, his was one only of 17 wickets to fall on the day, so it receded into the hubbub. Rishabh Pant and debutant Nitish Reddy mounted the only substantial resistance, each in his patent way. The centrepiece of Pant’s innings was an extraordinary six off Cummins, in which he fell sideways and rolled while ladling a full ball on off stump over two men set in the square leg deep.
Perhaps only David Warner – watching this day from the media box – has played such a shot previously in Test cricket, so it could be said to be a scoop and almost an exclusive. In that moment, he was less Pant, more hyperventilate. Reddy met off-spinner Nathan Lyon with a series of reverse sweeps.
This is orthodox, of course, except that Lyon has 530 Test wickets and Reddy had neither run nor wicket to begin. This is the IPL effect. Whatever else familiarity breeds, it demystifies and demythologises.
It also takes the temperature out of days like this, which once might quickly have overheated. In the amped up proceedings, Australia held good catches and dropped sitters, and in one astonishing moment did both. Nathan McSweeney flung his left hand at a thick edge and Marnus Labuschagne was alert enough to catch the ricochet in his right hand.
Well, they say you should always use two hands. Meantime, Bumrah and Reddy dumped sixes over third man, Reddy with the face of his bat and Bumrah with the back. These are reported here because they characterise a day on which anything might have happened and often did.
Whatever smugness Australia may have felt to have India out so soon, they were quickly jolted out of it. Bumrah was as devastating as he was mesmerising. McSweeney on debut fell to a lightning fast in-ducker.
He looked like he had never seen anything like it before, and he probably hadn’t. That’s not because it’s unusual, it’s the Bumrah effect. It still confounds 50- and 100-Test batsmen.
Bumrah averages 20 in Test cricket, which is preternaturally far from average. The pre-series talk was all about Kohli and Pant, but if Australia does not find a way to read Bumrah, they will wear the dunce’s cap in this series. Bumrah had Usman Khawaja caught at slip, and Steve Smith lbw first ball, and should have had Labuschagne second ball except that the besieged Kohli somehow managed to drop a ball he had already caught, confusing Bumrah and other teammates who took a while to grasp what Kohli had failed to grasp.
It added to the day’s catalogue of weird and wonderful happenings. So it was that two Australians had a bite each at the cherry and caught it, and one Indian had two bites and dropped it. In lieu of Labuschagne’s wicket, Bumrah and associates made him dance like Raygun for 50 further excruciating balls before Mohammed Siraj claimed him anyway.
He made 2. Marnus Labuschagne toiled away for a painful 52-ball two. Credit: AP Smith missed a screaming Bumrah off-cutter, also a latter-day commonplace.
He looked aggrieved. Cricketers of the third age often think they’re suddenly getting all the good balls. The point is that they used to deal with them.
Once Bumrah had ripped Australia open, it was inevitable that the exposed middle order would sustain more damage. It has become a chronic problem. So quickly did Australia collapse here that at stumps, there was still shine on the ball.
That becomes Saturday’s problem. For a bad day, this was a good day. There was a crowd in Perth, which was exotic.
The intrigue about this series intensified. Once, a day so hotly contested might have led to words between the teams. This day, there was hostility only in the attack and counter-attack.
At one point, Marsh and Pant bumped elbows while grinning fraternally. The only edge in play was the outside, constantly. Australians generally have taken a new-ball quality shine to Pant and Bumrah, Kohli too.
In cricket’s new dispensation, hopefully it survives whatever comes next. The least we know is that it will come quickly. Supposedly, the pitch will speed up a bit on Saturday.
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