Australia ended the day with a reasonable degree of confidence that the “faster and faster” nature of this Test is now more likely to result in India’s demise
Daniel Brettig in Perth16-Dec-20183:34
Laxman: Lyon’s consistency is exceptional
“Ian Healy,” his former coach Bob Simpson once said, “bats faster and faster until he gets out.” For Healy, it was possible to read Perth Stadium on Sunday as a pitch that had seemed to press pause on its own evolution for a day, then resumed the quickening path towards deterioration and an outright result.Whether it was a damp, softening Kookaburra ball, cooler temperatures that eased the surface’s tendency to crack, or adrenaline-driven bowling at the fall of India’s second and third wickets that did not allow plans to be carried through with full effectiveness, the Australians had been frustrated at a game not quite bending to their schedule on day two. But from Nathan Lyon’s very first over, it was clear that the third would be characterised by a rise in the pace of the game, to a level the Australians were familiar with, if not always in total control of.Critically, Tim Paine’s men started well through Lyon, who gained a belated chance to bowl to a not-yet-set Ajinkya Rahane after he was curiously absent from similar exchanges on day two. Within three balls, he had his man, as the ball zipped with Gabba-like bounce and pace from a line wide of the off stump while running straight on instead of turning. Paine’s catch, the first of two key snaffles this day, was exceptional.Hanuma Vihari, who had come into the side for the injured and often impatient Rohit Sharma, offered Virat Kohli a modicum of middle-order support, allowing the captain to go on to a terrific 25th Test century and marking it with a gesture suggesting he was letting his bat do the talking. One Vihari straight drive would have sat comfortably in any Kohli anthology, and for a little while it appeared that India might threaten Australia’s total despite the early wicket.ALSO READ: Kohli only second to Bradman to 25 Test centuriesBut Josh Hazlewood, one bowler singled out by the bowling coach David Saker and senior coach Justin Langer for some gentle chiding after his day-two displays, was able to benefit from the hard second new ball, producing a delivery to prance off a length and seam away just enough to flick the edge. It was the sort of ball that brooked no argument about how the batsman had played it: a moment witnessed by Australian spectators watching home fast men torment visiting batsmen for decade upon decade.Kohli’s exit would arrive from another delivery that reared enough to find the edge, this time from Pat Cummins and caught perhaps one millimetre above the turf by Peter Handscomb. He was correctly given out whatever India’s leader may have thought based on his view of replays on the big screen far further away than the third umpire’s high-definition view. From this point the Australians were able to round up the innings with enough swiftness to guarantee a lead, Lyon reaping a five-wicket haul as reward for a line that probed for outside edges via the bounce and pace now plainly on offer.On a day where his fifth wicket took him past the haul of Allan Donald on the list of all-time wicket takers, Lyon spoke approvingly of some elements of Australia’s display, but less so of others. While he agreed that the pitch was starting to play “a few more little tricks”, he reckoned that the collective also featuring Hazlewood, Cummins and Mitchell Starc had plenty of improvement to do for the remainder of this match and series – India had, by his reckoning, been bowled out for 283 by a unit operating well below its best.”The wicket seems like it’s starting to play a few more little tricks,” Lyon said. “We were expecting the cracks to play a little bit more, but with that rain yesterday it probably softened our ball up quite a fair bit, I know as bowlers the ball in cricket terms felt like it had no air left in it, so it lost a little bit of zip off the wicket, but we were pretty happy with the way we bowled but we know that come the second dig we can bowl much better than that, so we can take a few lessons off that first innings.”I thought we were well off in the first innings of this game, so to bowl India out for 283 was a pretty good effort especially when you’ve got someone who scores a big hundred. So it gives us a lot of confidence that we weren’t at our best and we were able to take 10 wickets for 280. Whatever we get to in a lead, we’ll just have to defend that and we’re confident we can learn from our past innings, get better, and it’s exciting times for the Australian bowlers.”ALSO READ: How did Bumrah only get one wicket?Runs had flowed a little more quickly for India than on day two, and the patterns continued for Australia as the lead was built up. But the bounce, pace and movement now on offer to India’s pacemen, with Ishant Sharma and Jasprit Bumrah finding particularly beguiling lengths, meant that the hosts never quite looked in control of proceedings, as wickets fell and Aaron Finch’s finger was struck a third painful blow on the right index finger this summer.”The Indians have got a world-class bowling attack as well, so we expect nothing less from their bowling attack,” Lyon said, “but I was a little bit nervous watching it out there but I’m a nervous character waiting to bat anyway. So just to see the good quality of Test cricket being played that made me quite happy. It’s exciting, gets your adrenaline going as a player, there’s nothing better than seeing good, hard Test cricket.”Miscalculation shared room with limitation as the Australian lead grew. Marcus Harris will play few matches on pitches like this where he leaves a ball around the line of the off stump and hears the bail being clipped rather than cleared, and likewise Travis Head can ponder the percentages of being caught in the third-man region twice in the same match.Travis Head was caught at third man again…Virat Kohli was delighted•Getty ImagesMore fundamentally troubling for Australia was the sight of Peter Handscomb falling lbw on the crease to Ishant Sharma in a manner not dissimilar to how James Anderson pinned him a year ago. After a year of technical and mental introspection about his methods, Handscomb seems still to be groping around for the switch to light up his Test career – Mitchell Marsh’s recall for the final two Tests seems likely.Nevertheless, Usman Khawaja was able to find the slipstream of the surface effectively enough to double his series runs tally at a far more productive scoring rate, even if there were edges and plays and misses aplenty. Alongside him, Paine engaged in the odd exchange with an increasingly steamed up Kohli, as tempers were raised in sync with the sort of fiery cricket the pitch was helping to create.Australia thus ended the day hurtling forward, without total command of their circumstances nor the outcome in the two days remaining, but with a reasonable degree of confidence that the “faster and faster” nature of this Test match is now more likely to result in India’s demise than their own.