217 runs. 17 wickets. Read it again to believe it! Mitchell Starc and Pat Cummins would've dreamt of having a coffee sitting in the dressing room but one of them ended the day in the middle while the Aussie skipper even lost his wicket to leave his team reeling. Yes, after scoring only 150 runs, India have ended Day 1 of the Perth Test on top. Not many would've believed that Australia would find India's bowling almost unplayable as they managed to pick 10 wickets of the visitors in 49.4 overs.
Jasprit Bumrah was the man leading from the front with the ball as he ran riot in his opening spell sending back Nathan McSweeney, Usman Khawaja and Steve Smith. He spit fire with almost every delivery and should've had Marnus Labuschagne as well only for Virat Kohli to drop a regulation catch at the second slip. However, the wicket he took to dismiss Smith was special as Australia's best batter in the format bagged his first golden duck in 10 years.
Mohammed Siraj was wayward in his opening spell but Harshit Rana, on debut, filled in quickly to castle Travis Head with a beauty. There was no respite for the hosts at any moment with Siraj returning for an incisive second spell. He didn't concede a single run in the first four overs of the spell before sending back Mitchell Marsh and a dogged Marnus Labuschagne who scored only two runs off 52 deliveries.
At 47/6, it felt as if nothing could get worse for Australia but there was one final nail in the coffin left as Bumrah returned for his second spell to take down his counterpart Cummins. Mitchell Starc and Alex Carey survived the tricky phase in the last few minutes even as the former somehow managed to play out a slower delivery from the India skipper. Australia ended the day at 67/7, still 83 behind in the first innings.
India batters disappoint as Nitish stands tall
Earlier in the day, the Indian batters disappointed as it seemed they never arrived in Perth. Of all people, it was KL Rahul, arguably the most scrutinised batter ahead of the series, who looked the best. Yashasvi Jaiswal bagged a duck while Devdutt Padikkal couldn't score despite facing 23 balls. Virat Kohli's stay was extremely short in the middle and when Rahul got out after scoring 26 runs off 74 deliveries, India were reeling at 47/4. Soon it became 73/6 as Dhruv Jurel and Washington Sundar also followed suit.
The debutant Nitish Reddy and Rishabh Pant then stitched a stand of 48 runs to calm things down a little. While Reddy scored 41 runs to be the highest scorer of the innings, Pant also collected 37 to give some respectability to the total. India could only post 150 runs before getting bundled out but little did anyone know that they would be too much for the home side.
As for the Aussie bowlers, Josh Hazlewood was the best among them picking up four wickets. Starc, Marsh and Cummins also finished with a couple to their name only to come out and lose their wicket again by the end of the day.
