Perth: It was only a matter of time so Australian fans didn’t even bother making the trip to the Optus Stadium on Day 4 of the first Test on Monday. Pat Cummins and his team were in a tight spot that would take some getting out of and India were clearly not in a mood to be very generous.

As it turned out, the home team fans who decided to stay away were right. India finished things off in quick time, recording their third biggest Test win in an away game. The 295-run victory ranks only behind the 318-run win over West Indies at North Sound in 2019 and the 304-run triumph over Sri Lanka at Galle in 2017.

But neither of those matches required the kind of comeback that the team staged in Perth. So dominant were India after being dismissed for 150 in the first innings that it might be easy to forget that they were under the pump at one point.

In fact, in the history of Test cricket, only one team has won by a bigger margin than India’s 295 runs despite scoring only 150 (or less) in their first innings - 343 runs by West Indies against Australia in the 1991 Bridgetown Test where they made only 149 in the first innings.

Leading the way for India was stand-in skipper Jasprit Bumrah. He gave himself just 3.4 overs in the morning session but with Travis Head finding some form, he brought himself on and struck once again.

The left-hander is a long-time tormentor of the Indian team and his rapid innings was perhaps the sole bright spot for the hosts. But Bumrah came into the attack, and despite the pitch looking flat and the ball getting soft, got the wicket.

The ball before the wicket was a bouncer and it flew way over Head. But it pushed him back. And then, the next ball was just back of length. Head, still hanging back, threw his hands at it and got the edge through to the keeper. His 89 off 101 balls was a thoroughly entertaining innings and could perhaps show other Aussie batters the way forward.

That was the last wicket Bumrah took in the game but his match haul of 8/72 earned him the Player-of-the-Match award. In eight matches in Australia, the pacer has now taken 40 wickets at an incredible average of 18.80, and as far as inspirational performances by Indian captains go, this is right up there.

The other wickets were shared among the rest of the bowlers with Siraj taking 3/51. And that was more than enough to finish things off just after tea.

The rest of the bowlers did go for a few runs and that will perhaps allow the Aussies to analyse them better going forward. The batting should benefit from the return of Rohit Sharma and Shubman Gill, but bowling-wise India may not want to make too many changes.

For Australia, there will be a fair amount of introspection to be done with the second Test in Adelaide starting only on December 6. But Cummins doesn’t want to panic too much for now. And Bumrah too would want his team-mates to stay calm and focused.

“You can take the confidence from here, but again you have to start from zero. You have to build on this confidence, you have to take learnings from this game as well. There are learnings for us in this game,” said Bumrah.

Next stop for India is a two-day day-night tour game in Canberra which begins on November 30. Many of the top bowlers might prefer to sit that one out but there will be a fair bit of interest on the batting front.

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