India Beat Australia By 295 Runs

In the WTC era (for India, this began in August 2019 in the West Indies), India have built the following record. Their record outside Asia in this period reads 10 wins and 10 defeats.

Jasprit Bumrah has played 31 of these These 52 Tests, and taken 132 wickets at 19.4/41.6. Since his return from his year long injury layoff (Bumrah did not play a Test between July 2022 and December 2023), he has collected 53 wickets in 11 Tests at 15.4/30.8. Bumrah gets about half his wickets bowled or lbw (93 out of 181, 46 bowled, 46 LBW). His ability to attack the stumps - to get the ball to move in both directions and hit the stumps from a threatening length - is what marks him out as the exceptional bowler of his era. Bumrah averages 7.5 (and gets a wicket every 12.7 balls) on deliveries which hit the stumps. The average fast bowler averages 14.0 and takes a wicket every 25.1.

By the time Australia got their first wicket lbw or bowled, India were 367 ahead in the third innings. India’s first 14 wickets in the Perth Test were all out caught. This is traditional for Australia’s bowlers on their bouncier home pitches. One in three of Glenn McGrath’s wickets in Australia were bowled or LBW. At Perth, this falls to 22%. This Perth pitch was bouncy as usual. By the third afternoon, uneven bounce developed and the odd ball began to keep low. Australia though, persisted with their traditional Australian length here. Josh Hazlewood was magnificent, but didn’t attack the stumps as much as Bumrah did. When India batted in the second innings the seam movement had subsided and the lifters were consequently easier to ignore. The Indian batters didn’t really have to defend their stumps. With the exception of KL Rahul in both innings (defending the top of off stump on the front foot), all the other Indian batters in this match fell to back-of-a-length deliveries. Rishabh Pant’s dismissals in both innings were to ambitious attacking shots.

Six of the twelve Australian wickets in the top six fell bowled (one) or LBW (five). The Indian bowlers attacked the stumps a lot more than the Australians did. They induced greater jeopardy as a result - a false shot every 4.1 balls compared to one every 5.5 balls for Australia’s bowlers.

This difference in the choice of length apart, Australia were also suckered by the conditions. The Optus Stadium pitch went from fiery, green, bouncy on Day One, to flatter, more placid on Day Two and the first half of Day Three. And then, uneven. India had the better of the batting conditions and were able to build a 533 run lead and declare. The weight of the lead told, and Virat Kohli had the strange experience of scoring a century in Perth in which 71 of his 143 balls were bowled by Nathan Lyon (off spin), Travis Head (part-time off spin) or Marnus Labuschagne (part-time bouncers and leg-breaks). It was one of his easier Test hundreds.

Yashasvi Jaiswal made 161. He survived 55 false shots and fell to his 56th. His false shots rose significantly over his last 50 runs. His control percentage dropped from 84 for his first 100 runs to 81 by the time he got to 161 as he forced the page (his century came off his 205th delivery. His 150 came from his 276th delivery).

Harshit Rana joined Irfan Pathan (Adelaide, 2003), Mohammed Siraj (Melbourne, 2020) and T Natarajan (Brisbane, 2021) in the list of Indian fast bowlers who made their Test debuts in a win in Australia. He bowled a brisk pace but on less forgiving pitches where the batters can trust the bounce, he might concede runs quicker than the 4 an over he conceded in Perth. India will probably keep their options open for Perth and Brisbane.

These two sets of players have played a lot of Test cricket against each other. Nathan Lyon has bowled over 1000 deliveries to Virat Kohli in Test cricket. The Perth Test was decided by the conditions. India had the better of the conditions. Their hunch about the lengths required turned out to be brilliantly correct. After three Tests in which they were skinned by the toss, they had the better of it in Perth. Between these two teams, the one which finds itself on the adverse end of the conditions will probably lose.