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More than any pitch in the world, people talk about Perth. In our collective memory, it was always the Waca, fast and furious enough for decades of sequels.
These days the city’s cricket venue has hopped from the western bank of the Swan to the east at Perth Stadium, but in our collective contemporary consciousness the pitch is still essentially the Waca, spiritually the Waca. It was literally formed from the same clay, and as per the story about beings created that way, one half of the pair might as well have been made from the body of the other.
So if you look at the scorecard for the first day of the Australia-India Test at Perth, you would very reasonably have one question first. What the hell was the pitch doing? India all out for 150 in two sessions, then Australia stumbling to the brink in the third, needing an Alex Carey miracle on day two to save them from 67 for seven. Seventeen wickets in the day, all to pace bowlers. It must have been an untameable monster, no? A golem with the face of Dennis Lillee and eyes of desert fire, hungry for the taste of batting dreams?
Well, not really. There was coverage this week of the young curator, Isaac McDonald, belying a gruff exterior by saying how nervous he was about his surfaces before big matches. He might be struggling with his dinner looking at the scores. But, from what could be seen at the ground, he has done nothing wrong.
It was a pitch with good bounce and carry, lively enough to give some lateral movement: tricky while offering nothing in the realm of treachery. It provided a brilliant spectacle for fans of fast bowling. Various batters coped for a time. But overall none could cope for long enough although it should not have been beyond them.
Asked to bowl first by India’s stand-in captain, Jasprit Bumrah, the Australians did not give India the chance for air. First it was Mitchell Starc bowling an electric first spell, testing out India’s top order with swing and pace. Pat Cummins looked dangerous as an early first change, then Josh Hazlewood returned for Starc without losing his suffocating line, six runs from his first seven overs. Four wickets by lunch, then the apparent relief of Mitchell Marsh after the break instead added two more.
Starc got the opener Yashasvi Jaiswal after a poorly advised drive on the up, then worked over Devdutt Padikkal with yorkers that nearly smashed toes in between length balls past the edge. When Hazlewood finally got a chance at Padikkal he produced a work of art, bowling fuller and straighter to entice the drive, then shifting the line wider and decking it away to get the edge. An armpit length ball then had a wandering Virat Kohli fend to slip. Starc had some controversial help from the third umpire to get KL Rahul caught behind, but still needed to beat the player who best handled the conditions on the day. Marsh at lower pace still had the ball jumping to draw nicks from Dhruv Jurel and Washington Sundar.
Another perfect bit of bowling from Cummins had Rishabh Pant edging for 37, quelling the most dangerous player as a partnership formed with the all-rounder Nitish Kumar Reddy, and once the tail was docked it looked like the perfect toss to lose.
But Bumrah can do other things besides make decisions after the coin comes down, shuffling in off his handful of paces before catapulting pace with a ball possessed by the slightest guidance from fingers and wrist.
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His ball into Nathan McSweeney’s pad looked laser-guided from wide of the crease. One leapt at Marnus Labuschagne only to be dropped at slip, then at Usman Khawaja who was not so lucky. It was back to mode one for Steve Smith, shuffling across and nailed in front of middle stump first ball. Three down for 19 runs, setting the scene for the debutant Harshit Rana to clean up Travis Head from around the wicket with a screamer that moved past the bat to hit off stump, then Mohammed Siraj to again influence a Test in Australia as he did last tour, an edge from Marsh and a stone-dead lbw shout against Labuschagne. Bumrah capped it off with a nick from his opposing captain.
And again, none of it was unplayable. Just very difficult. None of the bounce looked uneven, nothing rolled across the floor or jumped at the collarbone. It was simply a festival of fast bowling, from practitioners fresh at the start of a series on a surface giving them something rather than the all-too-common nothing.
For people who enjoy that spectacle, it was a hell of a day to watch. Less enjoyable perhaps for the Western Australian Cricket Association – the body as opposed to the ground – which celebrated the state’s best ever Test attendance on day one, but is looking at a weekend that could yet contain far less cricket than they have budgeted for.