More than any land in the world, people talk about Perth. In our collective memory, it was always the Waca, fast and furious enough for decades of aftereffects. These days the city’s cricket ground stretches from the west bank of the Swan to just east of Perth Stadium, but in our contemporary collective consciousness the ground is still essentially the Waca, spiritually the Waca. He was literally formed from the same clay, and according to the history of beings created this way, one half of the couple could just as easily have been made from the bodies of the other.
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So if you look at the scoreboard from the first day of the Australia-India Test in Perth, you would very reasonably have a question first. What the hell was the field doing? India went all out for 150 in two sessions, then Australia stumbled to the brink in the third, needing a miracle from Alex Carey on day two to save them from 67 for 7. Seventeen wickets during the day, all to pace the bowlers. It must have been an indomitable monster, right? A golem with the face of Dennis Lillee and eyes of desert fire, hungry for the taste of dreams?
Well, not really. There was a report this week about young Tory Isaac McDonald belying a gruff exterior by saying how nervous he was about his surfaces before big games. He might struggle with his dinner looking at the scores. But from what could be seen on the ground, he did nothing wrong. It was a pitch with good bounce and carry, lively enough to provide some lateral movement: delicate while offering nothing in the department of betrayal. He put on a brilliant show for fast bowling enthusiasts. Various hitters faced for a while. But overall, none were able to get away with it for long enough, although it shouldn’t have been beyond their capabilities.
Invited to bowl first by Indian stand-in captain Jasprit Bumrah, the Australians did not give India a chance to come up for air. First it was Starc Bowling, an electric opening spell, testing the top order with his swing and pace. Cummins looked dangerous from the first change, then Hazlewood came back for Starc without losing his suffocating line, six runs from his first seven overs. Four wickets before lunch, then the apparent relief of Mitchell Marsh after the break added two more.
Starc got opener Jashasvi Jaiswal after an ill-advised drive, then worked Devdutt Padikkal with yorkers that almost shattered the toes between length balls beyond the edge. When Hazlewood finally got a chance at Padikkal, he produced a work of art, bowling fuller and straighter to attract the drive, then widening the line and swinging it away to gain the advantage. An armpit length then caused an errant Virat Kohli to slip. Starc had controversial help from the third umpire to get KL Rahul caught, but he still had to beat the player who best handled the day’s conditions. Marsh, at a slower pace, was still bouncing the ball to draw nicks to Dhruv Jurel and Washington Sundar.
It was another piece of perfect bowling from Cummins to get a boundary off Rishabh Pant for 37, suppressing the more dangerous player in a partnership formed with all-rounder Nitish Kumar Reddy, and once the tail was docked, it looked like the perfect coin toss to lose. But Bumrah can do more than make decisions after the coin falls, taking his few steps before catapulting the pace with a ball possessed by the slightest guidance of fingers and wrist.
His ball into Nathan McSweeney’s pad seemed laser-guided from wide of the crease. One of them jumped on Marnus Labuschagne only to be dropped in a slide, then on Usman Khawaja who was not so lucky. It was back to mode one for Steve Smith, moving in and nailing the first ball past center stump. Three runs for 19 runs, setting the stage for debutant Harshit Rana to clean Travis Head around the wicket with a screamer that went past the bat to hit the stump, then Mohammed Siraj to influence an Australia Test again as he did made during the last tour. , an edge from Marsh and a dead weight cry against Labuschagne. Bumrah topped it all off with a nickname from his opposing captain.
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And again, none of this was unplayable. Just very difficult. No bounce felt erratic, nothing rolled across the floor or jumped at the collarbone. It was simply a festival of fast bowling, of fresh practitioners at the start of a series on a surface giving them something rather than the all too common nothing. For those who love this show, it was one heck of a day to watch. Less pleasant perhaps for the Western Australian Cricket Association – the body as opposed to the field – which celebrated the state’s best test turnout on day one, but is looking ahead to a weekend that could still contain far less cricket than what she had planned in her budget.