Warner hits 69-ball ton as Australia dominates

Saturday, 14 January 2012 00:01 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

PERTH (Reuters): David Warner smashed the fastest test century by an opening batsman as Australia battered India on the first day of the third test on Friday, dismissing the tourists for 161 before racing to within 12 runs of that tally.

Warner’s 69-ball century was the joint fourth-fastest ever in tests and he finished the day on 104 not out with Ed Cowan unbeaten on 40 and the hosts sitting pretty on 149 without loss.

The 25-year-old lefthander, playing just his fifth test, lit up the afternoon as he put the Indian bowlers to the sword and was cheered to rafters when brought up the hundred with a huge six, one of three in an innings which also included 13 fours.

After captain Michael Clarke had won the toss, Australia sent India in to bat and barely put a foot wrong on a hot and humid day at the WACA.

Pacemen Ben Hilfenhaus, Peter Siddle, Ryan Harris and Mitchell Starc, who was preferred to spinner Nathan Lyon, set the tone for a dominant day when they shared the 10 Indian wickets between them on a lively track.

Already 2-0 down in the four-match series after heavy defeats in Melbourne and Sydney, India needed a much better showing to get themselves back into the series and their vaunted batsmen will again rue some poor shots.

Virender Sehwag, Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar and Gautam Gambhir were all removed at the cost of 73 runs by lunch before Virat Kohli and VVS Laxman launched something of a fightback by putting on 67 for the fifth wicket. Siddle (3-42) removed them both - Kohli for 44, Laxman for 31 - in a key spell before tea and the last four wickets tumbled for 17 runs in a little more than five overs after the second break.

Hilfenhaus (4-43) had struck as early as the fourth over of the morning to despatch Sehwag for a duck and later returned to end the stubborn resistance of the other Indian opener, Gambhir, for 31.

Gambhir’s departure was the second of two wickets just before lunch after Harris had trapped Tendulkar lbw for 15 to end the batting maestro’s 22nd attempt to secure his century of centuries. The morning session was punctuated with loud lbw appeals but Dravid continued his recent trend of being bowled out, this time for nine runs when a Siddle yorker breached his defences.

It was the fourth time in five innings in the series that Dravid had been bowled - the fifth if you count the Siddle dismissal that was ruled out for a no ball in the first test.

India also chose to go with four quicks, handing right-armer R Vinay Kumar his debut in place of spinner Ravi Ashwin in a side otherwise unchanged from the first two tests.

Ashwin’s batting was sorely missed after tea when Vinay Kumar (5) gave Starc his first wicket of the day with his captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni following him to pavillion soon afterwards, caught in the slips off Hilfenhaus for 12.

Zaheer Khan (2) was Hilfenhaus’s fourth victim with Starc (2-39) mopping up the final wicket when he had Ishant Sharma caught behind for three.