More even than at the Gabba, Perth is the place where cricketing delusions are pitilessly destroyed. The wickets are hard, bouncy, and generally well-grassed. Wrist-spinners here do not prosper. Not even Shane Warne could manage that. You need four seamers, including one medium, into-the-breeze swing bowler, and a finger-spinner prepared to give the ball flight. When batting, (a) leave a lot alone; (b) play back if you can’t drive; (c) your bat must be either horizontal or vertical; (d) do NOT open the face; and (e) if you’re going for a shot, then throw the kitchen sink at it. For bowlers, pitch a yard fuller than usual, hold the seam upright and hope for some swing and seam movement.
So much for conventional wisdom. Both teams were a curious mixture: battle-scarred veterans for the most part; most convincing both themselves and the selectors that they still possess what it takes. Unusually, both teams are captained by premier fast bowlers. Even less likely: both men are pleasant, agreeable fellows. To see Jasprit Bumrah’s face when a catch is dropped off him is to witness nothing but a rueful smile. Bumrah won the toss and batted. Why not, after all? The Indian players flouted part (b) continually in favour of a curious policy best described as Prod Forward With Optimism. All this managed was to present the Australian seam attack with some awfully easy scalps. You poke forward to everything? Fine. We’ll pull our lengths back a bit and take the shoulder of your angled bats.
For the fact that India managed even 150 they can thank Rishabh Pant’s aggressive 37. He fulfilled part (e) with such implacable enthusiasm that at one stage he cleared the boundary for six while lying on the ground as if wrestling with a crocodile in the manner of Steve Irwin. They can also thank the debutant fourth seamer Reddy, whose top score of 41 was a splendid mix of caution and daring. Some kudos also belongs to Lokesh Rahul, who stuck it out manfully for nearly two hours; and only departed to the faintest of outside edges. For Australia, Hazelwood’s relentless, metronomic accuracy took the spoils with four wickets, while Starc, Cummins and Marsh shared two apiece. Marsh bowled only five overs, but fulfilled the role of the absent Green with aplomb and cunning.
All eyes were now on Bumrah. His batsmen having let him down, he attacked the stumps in a brilliant spell, taking three scalps in his opening four overs. Australia’s bats faithfully obeyed precepts (a) and (b), but it didn’t help. Seeing the preference for back-play, India pitched full. They swung the ball late, they seamed the ball sharply off the well-grassed surface, and the home side had no answers. Labuschagne had, it was rumoured, decided to play with caution and not chase the ball outside off. The result was a tortuous 2 off 52 balls before he succumbed leg-before to the equally inspired Siraj. At stumps Australia was a dismal 7/67, hanging on the precipice of an embarrassing debacle. India’s 150 looks a long way away now.
And yet. The unobtrusive Carey remains at the crease. Perhaps he can manage something tomorrow. We have already seen Reddy with the bat. He has not bowled yet. And the chosen spinner, inexplicably, is Washington Sundar, presumably on the back of his eleven wickets in a losing side against New Zealand. On a crumbling pitch his slow-medium off-breaks are a deadly menace. But this pitch wouldn’t crumble after fifteen rounds with a stump-jump plough. Once again Ravi Ashwin will be sitting in the dressing room wondering why on earth he wasn’t chosen. There are moments when reason fails.