Australia’s struggling top four entered the record books in the worst way in Perth by scoring the fewest combined runs in the nation’s Test history after Usman Khawaja and Steve Smith perished cheaply on Monday.
India are edging closer to an emphatic win to begin the Border-Gavaskar series, heading into the lunch break requiring another five wickets to take a 1-0 series lead.
An impressive 63 not out from Travis Head was the only real highlight of the first session of day four as Australia went to the break at 5-104, needing another 430 runs to salvage what would be a miraculous win.
Resuming play at 3-12, Australia added just five more runs before Khawaja was caught for four. His attempt at a pull shot resulted in a top edge flying high into the air. A shot that has proven profitable for Khawaja in his career didn’t go to plan this time.
Smith, dismissed for a golden duck in the first innings, started to get into his groove before edging Mohammed Siraj behind to wicketkeeper Rishabh Pant who dived to his right and took a sharp catch.
The move back to No.4, after having experimented as an opener, hasn’t started as Smith would have wanted. Like Labuschagne, Smith is under pressure to fire in this series, having chalked up just two scores over 12 in his last ten Test innings.
With Pat Cummins making just two runs on Sunday evening as Australia’s nightwatchman, it is a historic low for the top four in this Test.
Across eight individual innings, Nathan McSweeney, Khawaja, Labuschagne, Smith and Cummins combined for just 29 runs.
Never before has an Australian top four made fewer runs in a Test. The next worst was the 38 runs made by Australia’s No.1 to No.4 in a Test against England in Manchester in 1888. On two other occasions in 1888, at Lord’s and the SCG, Australia’s top four made just 40 runs combined.
Head relishes the chance to take the game on and showed that early on day four with positive shot selection and crisp timing. He cracked seven boundaries to quickly rack up 60 per cent of Australia’s total runs in the second innings.
The highest successful run chase in Test cricket is 418, achieved by the West Indies in 2003 against Australia at Antigua.
