How India changed Test match form and fortunes in 2-and-a-half days

IND vs AUS: Who could have imagined this turnaround after that dramatic couple of sessions on the opening day after India were shot out for 150? Something in Australia’s water, as they say, brings out the best in India. All the cliched sporting hopes turn true: bouncebackability from the depths, collective team-spirit, never-say-die attitude, an inexplicable self-belief even without key players – where minor miracles seem like everyday stuff.
Yashasvi Jaiswal’s resplendent 161 and Virat Kohli’s 30th Test hundred that had the entire stadium celebrating, has meant that Australia now need 522 more runs, with just seven wickets in hand. It was Josh Hazlewood who put their arduous task in perspective. “If a couple of batsmen can score 80 or 100, it’s a long series and we can get Indian bowlers to work a bit. And if a couple of batsmen can get some form, it would be good for the rest of the series.” Words that resonate common sense, of course, and no blind hope for something magical. The odds are stacked that much against them in Perth.
Everything felt Indian about the third day’s play: the pitch that was good to bat on and increasingly brought out variable bounce. The crowd was largely Indians (“We are now used to it,” said Hazlewood). The kind of batting where Indians dominated utterly to set a final-innings target. The three quick Australians wickets in the end in no time.The air of resignation in the opposing team (as expressed Hazlewood). It’s Perth, it felt like India of the old. Only reminder, and a strong one at that, is India are just fresh off suffering a whitewash at home. More reason to feel that there is something in Australian water, then.
Jaiswal set it up in the first half of the day with a perfectly suited knock to the demands of the game. Overnight on 90, he reached his hundred quickly, and then went about demolishing the Australian attack. The only blip was the fall of KL Rahul, who fell edging a length delivery that straightened outside off from Mitch Starc. Devdutt Padikkal did enough to support Jaiswal for a while before making way for Kohli to take centre stage.
Even as he was settling in, India suddenly had a mini-stumble. Jaiswal fell, slapping a short wide delivery from Mitch Marsh straight to backward point, Rishabh Pant charged out too early to Nathan Lyon to be easily stumped, and Dhruv Jurel was trapped lbw a skidder that kept a touch low. Jurel’s dismissal in particular highlighted the need for India to bat late into the last session so that the pitch breaks up a bit more and more uneven bounce comes into play. For that Kohli had to guide the younger team-mates through to that phase. He found support from Washington Sundar, who chose caution over flashiness to ensure India didn’t fritter their advantage doing anything silly.
India’s Virat Kohli celebrates his fifty runs on the third day of the first cricket test between Australia and India in Perth, Australia, Sunday, Nov. 24, 2024. (AP Photo/Trevor Collens)
Though Lyon bowled with a packed on-side field, Kohli kept wring his swat-flicks, a refreshing change from the recent past where he would just lunge and prod to good-quality spin. Occasionally, Lyon would get one to turn through bat-and-pad gap or skid under the bat, but and large, Kohli was in control. And when Nitish Reddy joined his idol at the fall of Sundar, who was bowled after failing to connect with a slog sweep against Lyon, the debutant set the agenda going after the bowling. And Kohli followed suit as it became clear that declaration was not too far. The red ball kept flying everywhere to thunderous chants all around as the stadium in Perth, an Australian city with a time zone close to India, turned almost Indian in every respect.
Bumrah again
But all this was just the build up, the setting up for the short but sweet act that was needed if India were to really savour the day. Yes, Kohli’s hundred after 16 Test innings would have been great for fans, Jaiswal’s hundred of such maturity was heartwarming and bodes well for the future and not just present, but without Jasprit Bumrah’s strikes, there would have been no proverbial icing on the cake.
He took out the debutant Nathan Sweeney for the second time in the Test. The middle-order batsman, who was leapfrogged over regular openers in domestic cricket and pushed to open, got a ball that kept low and that skidded to trap him lbw. With 22 minutes to go, Pat Cummins came in as a nightwatchman, not a great decision in first place but such has been Marnus Labuschagne’s form, and he perished, poking at a Siraj delivery outside off stump.
Labuschagne’s struggles continued. It’s not for want of trying, though. Every morning before the game starts, he has been at indoor nets, working hard. But in the middle, all he has been doing is trying to survive. And he shouldered arms to Bumrah delivery that snaked in from outside off to trap him lbw to complete Australia’s misery.
He didn’t name them but Hazlewood’s “if two batsmen can get 80-100” is probably meant for Travis Head and Steve Smith, who has returned to middle-order for this Test after trying out as a opener. Both can of course, but will both do it? Not just this Test, but the rest of the series depends on that. And that’s the most astonishing thing about this Indian performance in Perth: that one is even framing it in the prism of whether Australia can be more competitive was unthinkable, for many, just two-and-half-days back.