Live blog - Bumrah puts India on top on 17-wicket opening day

1h ago

WHAT A DAY. An absolutely brutal one for any batter facing the fast bowlers today. Two brilliant, skillful attacks getting a high degree of seam movement from start to finish, with a ball kicking up awkwardly every now and again to boot.

Australia end the day trailing by 83 runs with just three wickets in hand. They would not have expected anything like this when they bowled India out for 150, but this can happen in extreme conditions, particularly when the opposition includes a guy named Jasprit Bumrah.

The last ball of the day sums it up. Mitchell Starc on strike, and he strengthens the leg-side field with a leg gully. Starc is a reluctant mover of his feet at the best of times, and now the field is placed to put the threat of the short ball in his mind and push him back even more. Starc probably knows the field is set for some sort of bluff, and with Bumrah it's very likely the bluff will be the full slower ball. But all the reasoning you can do happens in the mind. The body only obeys muscle memory. Out comes the slower ball, and a half-flick, half-jab sends it looping up back towards the bowler. Would have been the perfect Bumrah moment to finish the day with a c&b that completes a five-for. Doesn't quite carry, though, but what a bowler.

So how have India got themselves into this position? Two things come to mind. One, they won what could be an important toss. Bumrah said he expected the pitch to be at its best for batting early on, and quicken up under the sun. That may have happened through the day, and made India's seam movement that much harder to negotiate.

Second, India finish with four bowled or lbw dismissals out of their seven wickets. All 10 wickets Australia took, meanwhile, were caught. In both 2018-19 and 2020-21, one of the keys to India's success was how well they attacked the stumps compared to Australia's bowlers. From the evidence of today, that seems to be happening again.

A long way to go still, though, in this Test match first of all and then the series. We couldn't have asked for a more gripping start, and we hope the rest of this series is just as good.

1h ago

2h ago

It's 38 for 5 now, and all three of India's main quicks are among the wickets. This wicket is the classic Perth wicket. Corridor ball, straightening, kicking up at Mitchell Marsh, and he tries his best to soften his hands and somehow keep the ball from carrying to the cordon off the shoulder of his bat, but it juuuuuuust about carries to Rahul, who moves smartly to his left from third slip and picks it up inches off the ground. The third umpire is called on to adjudicate this, and as in all really low catches this could have gone either way, but it goes India's way on this occasion.

Already 15 wickets today, and just the 188 runs scored. Brutal.

2h ago

I've watched a good bit of Harshit Rana in the IPL, and as good as he is at that sort of bowling - changes of pace, into-the-pitch cutters at the death - nothing about it prepared me for what he can do with a red ball, on a pitch like this.

His first over was full of hit-the-deck menace, and he twice squared up Labuschagne and struck him on the thigh/groin area with balls that straightened past his edge. His second over showed the small margins for error that a hit-the-deck bowler can have against a batter like Travis Head, who doesn't need the ball to be particularly short or particularly wide to carve it away repeatedly to the boundary.

At the start of his third over, Rana course-corrects immediately. still hitting the pitch, but hitting it a little fuller, and the ball straightens after angling in from round the wicket, beats Head's outside edge, and hits the top of off stump. I haven't seen too many Indian fast-bowling debuts this good. Australia are 31 for 4 in 11.1 overs.

That ball to Head, incidentally, seamed 1.36 degrees. On average, this pitch has produced 0.8 degrees of seam. It's been a tough, tough strip to bat on for both teams, so keep that in mind when you assess how the batters performed here. For comparison, here is the average seam movement for three of the other four Optus Tests: 0.65, 0.56 and 0.62 degrees.

2h ago

Alagappan paints a picture from Perth:

"There's not a lot of runs on the board. The conditions aren't as spicy as they were in the morning (but that doesn't mean they're easy now). He's seen a catch dropped off his bowling. And yet he's bowling as if he has the wind in his back. He's bowling as if it's possible to take a wicket every single ball.

"He always starts over the wicket. Even though he's so so good to left-handers from the other way around. 47 of his 64 left-hand-batter wickets have come from around the wicket. Maybe he has to start from over to judge how much movement is on offer. In any case, it doesn't take long for Bumrah to shift his line of attack. And four balls later he has Usman Khawaja. Then he's on a hat-trick after pinning Steven Smith lbw. And that is such a perfect ball too. It's the kind Australia often use to target Joe Root on the front pad. Hit an in-between length and have it jag back in off the pitch. Smith's hands may have made it into Perth but they weren't quite ready to face Bumrah.

"And he could've got his hat-trick but for Travis Head's inside edge."

2h ago

Alex Malcolm shares his thoughts:

"Australia spent six months talking about the batting order, with Steven Smith central to the discussion. The chorus was almost unanimous. Smith had to get back to No.4. It was his rightful spot. A spot where he has been one of Australia's best ever. Cameron Green's injury paved the way. Australia picked a makeshift opener in Smith's place. And now Jasprit Bumrah has blown that preferred top order apart. Nathan McSweeney's new-ball inexperience showed. Usman Khawaja got opened up by a beauty. Marnus Labuschagne is only still at the crease because Virat Kohli dropped him. And Smith lasted just one ball. Pinned lbw in a similar fashion to some of his lbw dismissals in his brief stint as a Test opener. India are back in the game. Australia's batting frailties have been exposed."

3h ago

There's a feeling among analysts that Usman Khawaja is more comfortable with the ball angling across him than the one angled into him from right-arm around. Having started out from over the wicket, Jasprit Bumrah shifts to round the wicket in his fourth over, and almost immediately gets his man.

Obviously it wasn't as simple as change angle, get wicket, because you still need to bowl good balls. He bowls a beauty, angling into the channel, forcing Khawaja to play, then getting it to kick up and straighten to produce the edge to Kohli at second slip.

Then Steven Smith walks in. And Steven Smith walks back after one ball. Caught shuffling all the way across his stumps by a ball that was full enough for him to be on the front foot to. Nips in too, beats his defensive jab by a long way, and the lbw is so plumb that he doesn't take the review.

Australia are 19 for 3 in seven overs, after Travis Head survives the hat-trick ball. Bumrah has figures of 4-2-7-3.

3h ago

McSweeney's first Test innings is a short one. He survived two lbw appeals while shouldering arms, and both showed good judgment of length. But Bumrah shifts his length a little fuller and gets one to nip back in. McSweeney is caught halfway forward in defence, and the ball beats his inside edge and thuds into his knee-roll. The on-field decision is not out, but India review and have their man with three reds on Hawkeye.

In both their series wins in Australia in 2018-19 and 2020-21, one facet of India's seam-bowling displays was how many more bowleds and lbws they got vis-a-vis their Australia counterparts. Will be interesting to see how they go on that front this time around.

Australia are 14 for 1 in 2.3 overs.

Update It could have been 14 for 2, with Bumrah getting one to straighten on Marnus Labuschagne later in the over and find his edge, but Virat Kohli, falling to his right at slip, fails to hold on to the low-ish chance.

With only the No. 11 for company, Reddy begins to take chances every ball. He crunches Cummins down the ground for four, but either side of that miscues attempted leg-side heaves high over the leg side. Usman Khawaja, at midwicket, drops the first of these, a straightforward chance, but takes the second, a far more difficult catch for which he has to sprint to his right and dive low.

Hazlewood finishes with four wickets, and Cummins, Starc and Marsh with two each. Reddy is out for 41, a most promising debut innings, and he'll have some work to do with the ball too.

It's tea as well. Here are Alex's thoughts:

"Australia weren't perfect but they were very good. Josh Hazlewood and Mitchell Starc were outstanding. Hazlewood finished with the rewards of four scalps but Starc deserved more than his two. He set the tone early with his pace and accuracy. Had Australia reviewed and caught better, Starc could have had four himself. But the relentlessness of the pair was what was most impressive. India's batters didn't have a chance to breathe. Pat Cummins was a little off-colour. He has come in underdone and it showed. But he still contributed with the key wicket of Rishabh Pant. Mitchell Marsh's two were a bonus. Australia have set the game up now. Their batters have a chance to pile up a big score and ensure they only bat once."

4h ago

A No. 8 on debut, gets a pinpoint bouncer from one of the greats, who has set a fine third man for the ramp, knowing that this No. 8 can play that shot from having captained him in franchise cricket. The No. 8 takes on the shot and just clears the fielder. A snapshot of how exciting Test cricket often is in this era.

4h ago

Josh Hazlewood gets his third wicket with a typical Hazlewood delivery in the corridor. Straightens, kicks, and Harshit Rana pokes and edges. What happens next is pure brilliance: it flies low to Nathan McSweeney's left at gully, and he dives and gets a hand to the ball but can't hold on. He manages to parry it in the direction of third slip, though, and Marnus Labuschagne plucks out an outstanding reflex grab, reaching to his right and behind him to complete that magnificent bit of action.

India are 128 for 8. How many can Reddy and the tail cobble together?

4h ago

It isn't often that Pat Cummins bowls 13 wicketless overs and concedes 50 runs on a quick, seaming pitch while his bowling colleagues fill their boots. Having endured that, however, he comes back with the biggest possible wicket.

Pant goes for 37, and yes, he plays a lot of shots so we take the rough with the smooth, but this was a particularly low-percentage shot on this Perth pitch. Cummins was bowling over the wicket and slanting it across him, and given the bounce on offer, you probably don't want to try to whip the ball against that angle unless it's pitched right up. This wasn't, and he gets an edge that flies to Smith at second slip.

India are 121 for 7 in 45.5 overs.

4h ago

We're kind of used to the sight of Rishabh Pant falling onto his backside while hitting sixes, but we'll never stop gasping in disbelief. Especially when he does it against Pat Cummins while clearing the backward square leg boundary. The man is a genius.

Nitish Kumar Reddy, meanwhile, is also looking good. He's reverse-swept Lyon a couple of times while looking in full control, and driven Hazlewood straight back for another four.

Australia are still well on top, but India are finally beginning to have a bit of a say. They're 121 for 6 in 44 overs, and the seventh-wicket partnership between Pant and Reddy is now at 47.

Here's how Alagappan saw that Pant shot:

"Batting can be about technique. Getting behind the ball. Using soft hands. It can be about bloody-mindedness. Never giving up. Willing to put your body on the line. Rishabh Pant, often enough and right here just a few minutes ago, shows it is about imagination too.

"Pat Cummins bowls a fullish delivery on off stump. If it merits any kind of punishment, it’d probably happen with a straight bat. An on-drive perhaps because the angle of the ball was coming into the left-hander from around the wicket. But Pant sees things in a way few others do and he’s armed himself with this this fall-away shot for any time there’s a fullish ball on middle and leg. He gets low to get under the ball, bends his torso outside the line of the ball, and then whips his wrists to send it flying anywhere between square leg to fine leg.

"It was sit up and notice time at Perth stadium when he played it to the Australian captain and got six runs."

Mitchell Marsh bowled a high-impact five-over spell after lunch, and Alex was keeping a close eye on him:

"This is Mitch Marsh's longest spell in Test cricket since his return in the Ashes last year. He has bowled four overs in competitive cricket since injuring his hamstring while bowling during the IPL in April. He did not bowl in the T20 World Cup and was not planning on bowling at all during the white-ball tour of the UK but bowled four overs in the second last ODI of the tour at Lord's, only because Cameron Green got injured. Such was Marsh's fragility, he suffered back spasms after that game and missed the final ODI. He did not bowl in his two Shield appearances either. He has been nursed to the line so he could bowl in this series. And despite barely touching 125kph, and only bowling after lunch to help Pat Cummins manage the loads of his quicks, Marsh has been able to pick up two wickets and help open up India's lower order."

4h ago

After that NKR non-review, it's Pant's turn for a reprieve. Has a slog at Starc and skies it high, and Cummins has to turn around to try and take a sprinting, diving over-the-shoulder catch. The ball is slightly out of his reach, and he can't quite complete it cleanly. Pant was on 26 at this point. Now he's on 27, and India are 98 for 6 after 39 overs.

5h ago

When Rishabh Pant is batting and you get a chance to review, you probably take it. Australia have already lost two reviews doing that - one for an lbw appeal that was very, very clearly missing leg and bouncing over - and that may have contributed to their not taking a review for a not-out caught-behind decision when Reddy tries to swivel out of the way of a Starc bouncer. He doesn't quite keep his hands out of the way, and Snicko suggests there may have been a bit of glove onto ball.

India are 93 for 6 after 37 overs.

5h ago

5h ago

Australia began the post-lunch sessions with Mitchell Marsh and Pat Cummins, and for a little while there was an illusion of the match situation easing slightly for India. Marsh, of course, is Australia's fourth seamer, bowling to give Starc and Hazlewood a bit of rest. And sacrilegous as it may sound, Cummins was looking significantly less threatening, and more likely to offer width, than Starc and Hazlewood even in the first session. Dhruv Jurel had played a couple of nice-looking shots square on the off side.

But then, these are conditions where a wicket-taking ball can come out of anywhere, and Marsh produces one, straightening a good-length ball off the seam in the corridor, getting it to kick a bit, forcing Jurel to play with his line and finding the edge to second slip.

India are 59 for 5 in 27.5 overs.

...from Alagappan Muthu:

"India have done a lot of shadow batting in this session. Dhruv Jurel leaves the field playing a couple of punchy drives down the ground. It’s possibly a sign of how hard it is out there and how desperately they’re trying to gee themselves up to face it. Rishabh Pant was flashing thumbs up signs at KL Rahul being nice and switched on, it didn't matter that he had no real opportunity to score runs.

"A support staff member claps them inside at lunch. There might be an understanding in the dressing room as well that batting here is really not straightforward. A third of the balls that they’ve faced in this session (45 out of 150) have resulted in false shots. It’s been a serious examination."

Meanwhile, an explanation from a former umpire on why third umpire Illingworth may have asked for the Rahul decision to be overturned:

6h ago

It's one of those weird DRS situations where the ball may or may not have kissed the outside edge of the bat at the same time that the other edge of the bat hit the pad. The decision from on-field umpire Richard Kettleborough was not-out, and third umpire Richard Illingworth asks him to reverse it.

The situation gains some extra piquancy from the producers not providing the third umpire a side-on angle from the off side. Rahul walks off shaking his head - could be at the decision, could be at nicking off after battling for so long. Who knows.

Interesting thing is that the same method, of batting with bat and pad close together, and leaving a lot of balls by effectively hiding the bat behind the pad, had contributed to Rahul looking as solid as you can against an attack like this, on a pitch like this, and scoring 26.

He goes off the 74th ball he faces, and India are 47 for 4 in 22.2 overs.

7h ago

Yes, it's a verb now.

Kohli's been batting outside his crease and has been alert to anything a touch full that he can score off. It's a method that's brought him a lot of runs in Australia, but it's also one that makes surviving this particular kind of delivery a little trickier: extra bounce in the corridor from just short of a length. Josh Hazlewood gets one to kick at Kohli in exactly this way, and he fences at it and pops a catch to first slip.

Walks off playing a shadow-leave, and yeah, he could have left that ball, but sometimes when the ball jumps unexpectedly like that, your hands just react and go towards the ball. Tough, tough ball to get, especially so early in your innings.

Kohli is out for 5, and India are 32 for 3 in 16.2 overs.

Here's Alex Malcolm's assessment of Kohli's batting today:

"It's hard to understand Virat Kohli's decision to bat so far out of his crease in that brief innings. If you watch the highlights of his epic 2018 Test century on this venue, it is noticeable how different his pre-delivery movement was compared to today. In 2018 he started with his back foot just outside the popping crease line but triggered back and across a touch and then moved his weight into the ball when Australia's quicks overpitched. Today he was batting with his back foot nearly two feet outside the popping crease and propped onto the front foot very early. That early commitment of his weight forward makes it very difficult to push back. Josh Hazlewood never overpitched to him. Everything was back of a length and climbing. Kohli tried to ride the bounce off the front foot and just guided it to first slip. It's not a method for success in Perth, and the complete opposite of what worked for him in 2018."

Alex Malcolm sums things up from the Optus press box:

"A truly magnificent opening spell from Mitchell Starc. He beat or found the edge 10 times in five overs. Josh Hazlewood and Pat Cummins had only done it five times between them at the other end. Starc's pressure led to Hazlewood getting Padikkal in the end. Starc has come into this game off one of his best ever pre-Test series preparations. Last year he was carrying a significant groin issue through the World Cup and into the summer. This year he played a Sheffield Shield game at the MCG where he took seven wickets, including a second innings six-for, and bowled with sustained pace and accuracy throughout. He then took three wickets in the first ODI against Pakistan at the MCG. He has been working on a simple cue in his load-up at the crease. The rhythm, the execution, the swing, the pace are all there. He's going to be a handful for India in this series."

8h ago

Mitchell Starc's bowling as well as he's ever done with a new ball. His line, particularly to the two left-handers in India's top three, has been terrific - around that fourth-stump channel almost always, no easy leaves - and he's been getting enough balls to keep going with the angle into the stumps to make the away-swinger to the left-hander that much more dangerous. And he almost took out Devdutt Padikkal's off stump with a searing, outswinging yorker.

As of now, he's bowled 11 balls to Padikkal, and drawn false shots from five of them.

Alagappan Muthu, our man in Perth, is keeping a close eye on KL Rahul:

"The bowler is at the start of his mark. There is a hush. He starts running in. There’s electricity. The ball flies through, past the bat, there’s an “ooohhhh”. Trying to keep his cool in the middle of all this is KL Rahul. He is taking this opening-the-batting business really seriously but there’s something else that he’s done a lot more of in the half hour that he’s been out there. Gardening. Kicking the dirt off his batting crease. Marking and re-marking his guard. Patting the grass by the side of the pitch. Patting the good-length area of the pitch. He’s got too much energy and he’s trying to shed it all before he has to face the ball. This is a big morning for India and it’s not started perfectly."

8h ago

Lovely delivery from Mitchell Starc to bring up the first wicket of the series. On the fuller side of a length, leaving the left-hander in the fourth-stump channel, a bit of that Perth bounce. Not the greatest shot from Yashasvi Jaiswal, though, looked to drive on the up, bat well in front of body, and the thick edge flies low to gully, to Nathan McSweeney who hasn't had to wait too long to get on a Test-match scorecard.

India are 5 for 1 in 2.1 overs.

9h ago

R Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja are two of India's greatest spinners of all time. They have the experience of playing in Australia and contributing to back-to-back Test-series wins. Neither will feature in this Perth Test.

Instead, India will play just the one spinner, and that spinner is Washington Sundar. What an incredible last few weeks he's had. At the start of their last series, at home against New Zealand, he wasn't in the squad, and hadn't played a Test in three-and-a-half years. Then he came back, and it didn't seem like he came back on the back of his bowling, because he'd just scored a Ranji Trophy century batting at No. 3 for Tamil Nadu.

Since then, it's been all fairytale. A seven-for on the first day of his comeback, terrific performances with ball and bat in both Pune and Mumbai, and he's leapfrogged two all-time greats into the first Test of a massive overseas tour.

Here's what I think made India go with him. They wanted a spinner who could turn the ball away from Australia's many left-handers, and someone who could exploit Perth's bounce with his overspin. If Kuldeep Yadav had been fit, he may well have been playing this Test match. And India could have gone with Ashwin too, because he ticks those boxes as well, and has been one of Test cricket's greatest bowlers to left-hand batters. But they've gone with the man in form, a man with a style suited to these conditions, and with serious batting ability to boot. Plus, he handled himself pretty well on Test debut the last time India were in Australia.

India have picked four quicks in Bumrah, Siraj and the two debutants, Rana and Reddy, and they've brought Devdutt Padikkal, who wasn't even in the original squad, straight out of the India A side and into the No. 3 slot.

Australia line up as expected.

I can't think of the last time India began a series with so little idea of their best XI. They have a couple of big names missing, and they have a large squad with a lot of interesting options that could allow them to go many different ways with their selection, but so many of those options are unknowns, near-unknowns, or unknowns in Australian conditions.

There are, therefore, probably four certainties in India's XI - Yashasvi Jaiswal, Virat Kohli, Rishabh Pant and Jasprit Bumrah - and five if you count Mohammed Siraj. And a number of players are in line for their Test debuts. From what Alagappan Muthu has seen at the ground, it looks like two new caps have been handed out.

"India are in their huddle right now," he says. "Virat Kohli's got the grandpa duties, doing the team talk and dishing out a new cap. Think he might have given one to Nitish Kumar Reddy. There is a second debutant as well. Harshit Rana. He'd already marked his run-ups before he was given his cap. Clearly very eager to get out and bowl."

That's two seam-bowling allrounders, then. Reddy is more of a batter and a steady holding bowler - who has been talked up by India bowling coach Morne Morkel in the lead-up - while Rana is tall, strong, quick, and likes to hit the deck and hit the ball hard down the order.

Australia, of course, have a debutant of their own, and we've known this for a while. Nathan McSweeney will open alongside Usman Khawaja.

9h ago

Is this cricket's greatest rivalry? Who can say, but it's an undeniably great one. And it's never been more competitive than it has over the last decade, when Australia and India have produced a generation of champion players.

Some of them may still be around to contest the next edition of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy, but for most, this series that's about to commence is probably the final rumble.

Put yourself in any of their shoes. India begin this long and even-more-gruelling-than-usual tour with a proud record to protect. They wrested this trophy back in 2016-17, and have kept a tight grip on it ever since, winning 2-1 four times in a row including on back-to-back tours of Australia.

All those series were intensely fought, but India won each time. Now, they come to Australia wounded, having watched an unprecedented run of home-ground success end in emphatic circumstances, and with key players absent.

That look of vulnerability, however, will only make Australia extra-wary. They know that look, and they know, from four years ago, how deceptive it can be. This is one of Australia's greatest eras, but it's also coincided with an inability to beat their closest rivals, home and away, even when they've been at full strength. Now, with their core group ageing all at once, they have what's most likely their final chance to set that record straight.

It's Cummins vs Bumrah, Kohli vs Smith, it's Border vs Gavaskar all over again, and it's about to come to you, in approximately an hour's time, from the Optus Stadium in Perth.