Australia’s decision to play a four-man pace attack and send India into bat was vindicated when the tourists were bowled out for 161 shortly after tea on the first day of the third test Friday.
Pacemen Ben Hilfenhaus, Peter Siddle, Ryan Harris and Mitchell Starc shared the 10 wickets between them on a lively surface at the WACA but India’s vaunted batsmen will again rue some poor shots.
Already 2-0 down in the four-match series after heavy defeats in Melbourne and Sydney, India needed a much better showing to get themselves back into the series.
Australia skipper Michael Clarke won the toss and chose to bowl on a sunny and humid morning, having gambled on dispensing with the services of spinner Nathan Lyon.
Virender Sehwag, Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar and Gautam Gambhir were removed at the cost of 73 runs by lunch before Virat Kohli and VVS Laxman launched something of a fightback by putting on 67 for the fifth wicket.
Siddle removed them both – Kohli for 44, Laxman for 31 – in short order before tea and the last four wickets tumbled for 17 runs in a little more than five overs after the break.
Hilfenhaus, who finished with figures of 4-43, had struck in the fourth over to dispatch Sehwag for a duck and later returned to have the other opener Gambhir caught behind to end the opener’s stubborn resistance after an 82-ball 31.
Gambhir’s departure was the second of two wickets just before lunch that swung the balance of the match toward the Australians.
In the previous over, Harris had trapped Tendulkar lbw for 15 after the batting maestro had made a bright start to his 22nd attempt to secure his 100th international century with three well-struck boundaries.
The morning session was punctuated with loud lbw appeals but Dravid continued his recent trend of being bowled out, this time for nine runs when a Siddle yorker breached his defences.
It was the fourth time in five innings in the series that Dravid had been bowled – the fifth if you count the Siddle dismissal that was ruled out for a no ball in the first test.
India also chose to go with four quicks, handing right-armer R Vinay Kumar his debut in place of spinner Ravi Ashwin in a side otherwise unchanged from the first two tests.
Ashwin’s batting was sorely missed after tea when Vinay Kumar (5) gave Starc his first wicket of the day with his captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni following him to pavilion soon afterwards, caught in the slips off Hilfenhaus for 12.
Zaheer Khan (2) was Hilfenhaus’s fourth victim with Starc mopping up the final wicket when he had Ishant Sharma caught behind for three.
