Brief lapse undoes hours of Australian work

On the eve of Perth Stadium's first Test match, Australia's captain Tim Paine asserted that his "big three" pacemen Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood and Pat Cummins would not need much instruction about how to make the most of its looming pace and bounce. "We've got a really settled and experienced bowling attack, so I don't think we'll have to say too much," he said. "They know what works at Test cricket, they've done it before and played on all types of surfaces and adapted really quickly."

For the vast majority of day two, on a far more pleasant day to bowl than the first, Paine was entirely correct. Starc and Hazlewood nailed their lines and lengths with the new ball, gaining enough of both swing and surprise to clean bowl M Vijay and KL Rahul. And when Virat Kohli got off to a fast, insistent start of 19 from 12 balls, they combined artfully with Cummins to pull India back and pressure the unflappable Cheteshwar Pujara into a slight miscalculation and a feather edge down the leg side.

But in perhaps the day's most pivotal passage following the arrival of Ajinkya Rahane, India's last experienced batsman to accompany Kohli, the Australians appeared briefly to lapse into bowling that was driven less by experience, settled minds and clear plans than it was by adrenaline, excitement and the thrill inherent in bowling fast on a flier in the west - the sort of mental trap into which so many visiting teams have fallen over the years.

As a batsman, Rahane has weaknesses against Australia - Nathan Lyon has enjoyed conspicuous success against him on pitches with bounce, and he is as susceptible to edging tight, bouncing deliveries around the off stump as any other mortal wielding a bat in Test cricket. But he does not, empirically at least, show obvious weakness against the short ball. As with any plan, a short-pitched attack would have had a chance of succeeding had it been diligently and consistently applied, with bouncers directed over the line of the stumps and a field appropriately set.

Rahane, however, was subjected to something like a dog's breakfast: a mixture of short and full, straight and wide that allowed him to get off to a slippery start. He received nine short balls in his first 22, by which time he was on 23 and away. The last scoring shot in the sequence, an uppercut for six, underlined that the Australian line of attack, in this critical passage before Kohli's final likely ally was set, was too wide.

Fast bowling is a difficult task, potholed by injury risks and governed by enormous effort and detail to physically and mentally prepare the quicks for their task on Australian surfaces. But at the same time it is an emotive and sometimes angry occupation, requiring its practitioners to operate on the edge of their wits, particularly in a Test match over five days of toil. Over most of Australia's day, Starc, Hazlewood and Cummins bowled with the right balance between skill and emotion; in this key sequence they did not.

As Usman Khawaja put it, speaking for the hosts: "I think there's still enough in it, I think we bowled well in patches and then didn't quite bowl well in other patches, we probably could be a little bit more disciplined. But credit to them, they also batted well, put a bit of pressure on our bowlers. All the bowlers bowled well in patches, but you've got to keep doing it over and over again, you're going to beat the bat, sometimes they're going to nick it and sometimes they're not.

"I think we're still ahead of the game in a lot of respects, but Rahane came out and took on the short ball, got off to a little bit of a flier, then we pegged them back in, the bowlers started bowling really well. I think we've just got to do it consistently throughout the whole period. The bowlers knew that, some days it's like batting, some days it comes easily and other days it doesn't. Hopefully tomorrow we can be that little bit better but all in all I thought it was a pretty good day."

The perspective Khawaja offered was intriguing on one level at least - entering this summer with high expectations and fitness levels, recovery from a knee injury notwithstanding, he has been harried into errors by consistent tight bowling from India's collective, who have not once offered him the latitude Rahane was able to exploit.

"With any Test batsman you've got to keep putting it in the right place at the right time, as much as you can over and over again, hopefully be disciplined enough to find those edges," Khawaja said. "But as you sometimes saw you get a crack, and sometimes a crack goes too far.

"If we can get a couple of wickets early, obviously break this partnership right now, then it's not an easy wicket to start up on. As a team batting first you're hoping the wicket deteriorates a fair bit. We've still got to start off well tomorrow. If we do that, then we'll have our chance at the tail. I think we still have to be quite disciplined."

Kohli, Rahane and Pujara were all able to illustrate the possibility of batting time on this pitch, which has perhaps eased in its process of cracking up due to cooler temperatures following the initial heat of day one. But equally there have been plenty of moments to show that pacemen reining in their emotions and sticking to their plans can cause plenty of mayhem for batsmen. No one knew this better than Ishant Sharma, given how India twice struggled in the day's first hour, before tightening up and being duly rewarded.

"When we were bowling if you hit the length there's something in the wicket, you can't say there's nothing in the wicket," Ishant said. "Even yesterday as a bowling group we spoke about, even though we gave away a few runs, if you are consistent on these kind of pitches you have a good chance of doing well.

"At that time you just need to be patient, have patience, otherwise if you think there's going to be a lot of bounce in the wicket, I'll bounce them out, patience is important on these kinds of wickets. We think bowling in the right areas, good lengths, find out what a good length is, speak among each other, and then if you speak to each other then it's very easy for us to find out those lengths and bowl them."

Communication, patience and calmness. All the qualities that Paine expected of his fast bowlers on the sort of surface they have come to know well in this part of the country. There's nothing surer than that this match will contain more moments when Starc, Hazlewood and Cummins need to keep calm and to their plans. Another sequence or two like the one offered to Rahane might cost them the series itself.