India openers defy history to tame Aussie quartet

Australia spent months looking for a Test opener. Two days into their Test season, they are already sick of the sight of a couple of them.

India's patched-together pair of Yashasvi Jaiswal and KL Rahul did what no other opening duo has ever done against a bowling quartet that lays claim to being Test cricket's most effective of all time.

Never before have Pat Cummins, Josh Hazlewood, Mitchell Starc, Nathan Lyon allowed a bigger opening partnership on their home turf than the 172 runs Jaiswal and Rahul amassed on what had previously been a minefield Perth Stadium pitch.

Their unbroken four-and-a-half hour defiance earnt a salute from Virat Kohli, who hit throwdowns on the field as they walked off the ground at stumps, after they successfully shielded him from having to bat for a second time in as many days. 

Opening in Australia has been described as a fool's errand given the difficulty of facing the new Kookaburra boasting a more pronounced seam than previous iterations on increasingly seam-friendly surfaces.

The average Test opening stand in Australia has come down from around 50 through the first two decades of this century to now hovering around 33 since 2020. 

But even given how conditions turned in their favour late on day two, Jaiswal and Rahul's taming of Cummins, Starc, Hazlewood, Lyon (the first foursome to play together that boasts every member having 250 Test wickets to their names) was noteworthy. 

Before this Test, Jaiswal and Rahul had batted together just once, and that was when the latter was batting at six in a Test against Bangladesh in September. 

Not only was it the biggest opening stand Cummins and co. have conceded in Australia, it was also the longest. Their 57 overs faced comfortably eclipsed the 36.3 West Indies pair Kraigg Brathwaite and Tagenarine Chanderpaul soaked up at this same venue two years ago. 

The fact there has been only two other first-wicket unions of 100 or more against the quartet anywhere underlines how rarely opposition openers get the better of them.

The unbeaten 252 put on by Abdullah Shafique and Imam-ul-Haq on a Rawalpindi road in 2022, the highest opening stand against the foursome, will be in India’s sights on day three.

The only clear-cut chance the Australians created came when India had already reached triple digits, with Usman Khawaja leaving Starc exasperated when he put down Jaiswal at first slip with the score on 103. 

Coach Andrew McDonald was asked if the absence of bowling coach Dan Vettori, who has flown to Saudi Arabia for Sunday night's IPL auction in his role with Sunrisers Hyderabad, was felt on Saturday. It is difficult to think of what more he could have told the veteran quartet.

McDonald suggested the pitch flattening out was a bigger factor in their bowlers' reduced effectiveness.

"We bounced in and out of some plans. Did they work? We thought at times they were working. We could have created some opportunities in and amongst that, but it wasn't to be," said McDonald.

"I think the plans that the boys rolled through were good. They were clear, and it'll be more of the same tomorrow."

Finding a way through the sassy Jaiswal will be priority number one given how the prodigiously talented left-hander has played here. He already has three Test tons to his name and is now 10 runs away from a fourth.

Having sledged Starc by telling him his bowling was "too slow" despite the left-armer having dismissed him for a duck hardly 24 hours earlier, the 22-year-old flicked him for a towering six behind square on the leg side.

It was the 34th time this year Jaiswal has cleared the rope in Test cricket, going past Brendon McCullum's record of 33 from 2014. Take that, Bazball. The left-hander added a 35th when he plonked Nathan Lyon into the stands over long-on. 

Rahul meanwhile was coming off a lean start to his stint Down Under, managing 4 and 10 in two innings for India A at the MCG, before copping a contentious caught-behind decision (when on 26) in India's first innings in Perth. 

The 32-year-old is only playing because Jaiswal's regular opening partner, captain Rohit Sharma, is absent due to the birth of his second child. India will surely be considering fitting him further down the order when Rohit returns. 

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