Historic look at first-ever Perth Stadium Test

Where: Perth Stadium (venue for first Test, 22-26 November 2024) 

When: 15-16 December, 2018 (second Test, days 2-3) 

What was happening: 

The maiden Test match staged at Perth's new $1.6 billion stadium was a landmark occasion for reasons that transcended its location. 

A return of newly installed coach Justin Langer to his home patch helped mitigate public angst at the absence of suspended duo Steve Smith and David Warner which had, in turn, prompted a wholesale rejigging of Australia's batting stocks. 

The depth of that resultant hole was revealed in the series opener at Adelaide Oval three days earlier where the world's No.1 team snuck home against their hosts by 31 runs. 

So if Australia were to wrest back the Border-Gavaskar Trophy surrendered during a sometimes-spiteful campaign in India the previous year, they needed to triumph at a venue where neither team boasted Test experience. 

And to achieve that, they needed to continue the curb on India's talismanic captain and the game's top-ranked batter Virat Kohli who had been knocked over for three (courtesy of a freakish Usman Khawaja catch) and 34 in Adelaide. 

Kohli had been India's most prolific scorer on their preceding Test tour to Australia in 2014-15 (when he posted four centuries in as many Tests) and was a vocal figure in several flashpoints that erupted in India in 2017 even though he missed the final match through injury. 

It led Pat Cummins to note – in the lead-up to the 2018-19 summer – "I think Virat Kohli's not going to get a hundred and we're going to knock them off over here", a prediction that ruffled feathers in India's camp but seemed prescient after events in Adelaide. 

Cummins later clarified his remarks were more a wish than a forecast, and the fact India's captain had managed just 83 runs in seven Test innings against Australia heading into Perth suggested that hope might well be realised. 

Across contrasting days of heat and haze at the new ground, where nobody quite knew how a Test pitch might play, Australia's new-look batting line-up notched 326 before their star-strewn bowling attack reduced India to 2-8 from barely five overs on day two. 

That's when Kohli entered the unfamiliar arena, and a Test that had already proved intriguing at once became compelling. 

Why you needed to see it: 

It was 1.10pm when Kohli stormed out of the players' tunnel and on to the pristine turf, to a din of acclamation and expectation. 

From the second delivery he faced – a deftly timed on-drive against Josh Hazlewood that scorched to the mid-on rope – it was apparent Kohli was planning to counter-punch. 

While Hazlewood, Mitchell Starc and then Cummins kept Kohli's batting partner Cheteshwar Pujara under the pump, the skipper went on a boundary blitz pocketing three in four balls on either side of the wicket against Hazlewood. 

The fact Kohli had foregone his habitual 'bat tap' on the pitch immediately before bowlers' release and instead held his blade in the air suggested conditions were more difficult than the master made them appear. 

And when the introduction of spinner Nathan Lyon, whose 10 overs prior to tea had yielded just 16 runs, altered the nature of the battle Kohli duly throttled back to bide his time. 

The toil did not come without pain. 

Kohli copped a stinging blow to his right forearm from a Cummins delivery that ripped back off the lively Perth surface, and then an abrasion to his right hand as he desperately dived to regain his ground having taken off prematurely for a fraught single. 

An upper-cut to the backward point boundary off Cummins brought his 50, but it was one of Kohli's few boundaries in the final session as he withstood relentlessly high-quality bowling from Australia's big four to reach stumps unbeaten on a match-high score of 82. 

Fans who returned for day three were duly rewarded as Lyon struck early to remove Kohli's last recognised batting mainstay Ajinkya Rahane, leaving the captain to shepherd an inexperienced middle-order and lengthy tale on an increasingly unpredictable pitch. 

He wore another body blow, this time to his left elbow from a Starc snorter, and took every opportunity to monopolise the strike as he closed in on a 25th Test century that would surely rank among his most meritorious. 

That moment arrived, perhaps poetically given pre-series statements, when he stroked Cummins to the mid-off boundary. 

Having jogged a few perfunctory steps down the pitch, Kohli then unveiled an unsubtle celebratory gesture whereby he pointed at his bat before mimicking a talking puppet with his right hand to clearly indicate his preference for actions above words. 

Kohli's subsequent dismissal for 123 – defiantly standing his ground as off-field officials adjudicated on a low catch claimed by Peter Handscomb at second slip – underscored his brilliance given no other batter in the ball-dominated Test made it beyond the 70s. 

Anyone who witnessed that innings first-hand has it hewn into memory by dint of the circumstances in which it was made, the degree of difficulty presented by rival bowlers and prevailing conditions, plus the sheer technical skill and unbending will it required. 

And Kohli remained a pivotal figure across the remainder of the game, which Australia won by 146 runs despite the efforts of India's skipper. 

He was involved in several exchanges with his opposing captain Tim Paine that led to umpires intervening, and then Paine's infamous day-four follow-up when stump microphone picked up chat between Australia's keeper and Murali Vijay. 

"I know he’s your captain, but you can’t seriously like him as a bloke," Paine opined in a bid to break the India opener's concentration. 

Which only served to underscore Kohli's extraordinary impact – love him or loathe him, he is always hypnotically box-office. 

Who might repeat history: 

Kohli is expected to return for this summer's Border-Gavaskar Trophy Series, having missed his team's remarkable triumph of 2020-21 due to his early return home for the birth of his and wife Anushka's first child, a daughter (Vamika). 

Given no other India batter to have played 10 or more Tests in Australia has bettered Kohli's average of 54.08 here, he again looms as his team's most vital player and its pre-eminent drawcard in another hugely anticipated battle. 

And there could be no more appropriate manner in which to stamp his authority on the series than by unfurling another innings of substance at a venue where he became the first men's player to post a Test hundred. 

NRMA Insurance Men's Test Series v India

First Test: November 22-26: Perth Stadium, 1.20pm AEDT

Second Test: December 6-10: Adelaide Oval, 3pm AEDT (D/N)

Third Test: December 14-18: The Gabba, Brisbane, 11.20am AEDT

Fourth Test: December 26-30: MCG, Melbourne, 10.30am AEDT

Fifth Test: January 3-7: SCG, Sydney, 10.30am AEDT

Australia squad: (first Test only) Pat Cummins (c), Scott Boland, Alex Carey (wk), Josh Hazlewood, Travis Head, Josh Inglis, Usman Khawaja, Marnus Labuschagne, Nathan Lyon, Mitch Marsh, Nathan McSweeney, Steve Smith, Mitchell Starc

India squad: Rohit Sharma (c), Jasprit Bumrah (vc), Yashasvi Jaiswal, Abhimanyu Easwaran, Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli, KL Rahul, Rishabh Pant, Sarfaraz Khan, Dhruv Jurel, Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Mohammed Siraj, Akash Deep, Prasidh Krishna, Harshit Rana, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Washington Sundar. Reserves: Mukesh Kumar, Navdeep Saini, Khaleel Ahmed