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Australia aren’t the first team to be humbled by India on their own shores, and they won’t be the last.
But the manner of their latest disastrous collapse, bowled out for 91 in the 33rd over as Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja again ran amok to set up victory by an innings and 132 runs, should spark grave concerns for Australia for the next three Tests. Changes in approach, and personnel as well, will be top of the agenda.
After playing second fiddle to player of the match Jadeja in the first innings, the afternoon of Day 3 was Ashwin’s time to shine. Once again the visitors were simply unable to make head or tail of his variations, four batters trapped LBW and Usman Khawaja caught at slip to finish an ugly first Test in India.
Only a debut seven-wicket haul from Todd Murphy, and a fighting unbeaten 25 from Steve Smith, could be taken from a horror day as positives.
Australia’s total was their second-lowest ever against India – and after all the talk of pitch doctoring in the lead-up to the Test, the surface had little if anything to do with it.
Indeed, disciplined half-centuries from Jadeja (70) and Axar Patel (84), plus a freewheeling 37 from Mohammed Shami as he made the most of an ugly drop from Scott Boland early in his innings, proved the pitch was far from the raging turner it was predicted to be.
Resuming at 7/321, Australia would have hoped to quickly wrap up the rest of the tail when a Todd Murphy peach caught a shouldering-arms Jadeja by surprise.
But with three sixes, Shami had other ideas, adding 52 with Patel before a top-edge gave Murphy his seventh – the 23rd-best figures by a Test debutant and the sixth-best by an Australian.
Patel seemed destined for a maiden Test ton as he and Mohammed Siraj inched India towards 400 – but while the latter milestone was reached, the former wasn’t, Patel losing his shape for the first time as his swing to leg off Pat Cummins saw his furniture disturbed.
Trailing by 223, the task was great for Australia to simply make India bat again: greater still when Khawaja edged Ashwin, who had been handed the new ball, to Kohli at slip in the second over.
Not long after, Kohli spilled a simple chance to reprieve Warner; though with the out-of-form veteran limping to 10 before Ashwin took out the middle man and trapped him plumb in front, the selectors might not be so kind.
From there, it was a procession: Marnus Labuschagne looked solid before being pinned LBW by some extra spin for Jadeja, while Renshaw’s dismissal for 2, once again caught on the back foot and misreading Ashwin’s spin, would rightly have left Travis Head in disbelief at his omission from this Test.
Peter Handscomb and Alex Carey both started assertively with a flurry of boundaries before adding to the carnage, Carey falling for a second time in the match to a missed reverse sweep.
Amid the carnage, Steve Smith once again looked untroubled by the conditions and the bowling, but with wickets falling freely at the other end, India could afford to wait him out.
Cummins feathered an edge behind off Jadeja, Murphy gave catching practice to mid-wicket, and Lyon was comprehensively beaten by a full inswinger from Mohammed Shami that took out leg stump – the first wicket of the innings to fall to pace.
Smith took the red ink after his one mistake, bowled through the gate by Jadeja, was revealed to be a no ball, but it was a small mercy. Boland was trapped LBW by Shami just a few minutes later, and the rout was complete.
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