Crafty Lyon casts web around India, Kohli again

A lot has been said and will continue to be said about Tim Paine's run-ins with Virat Kohli during this Test. After all, familiarity over the course of a long series breeds increasing levels of tension, if not quite contempt.

However, the parallel tale is one of accumulating pressure with the ball and in the field from an Australian bowling unit that, as Lyon himself has observed, has been able to keep Kohli's returns, and that of the whole Indian batting lineup, within the sorts of levels that have allowed a severely weakened home batting lineup to remain competitive.

The collective performance of Australia at the Perth Stadium, aided by the winning of a toss more important than its Adelaide equivalent, has been encouraging for Paine and the coach Justin Langer. The captain has played a central role behind the stumps and with the bat, while Lyon has acted as the perfect counterpoint to the steadily more confident, revving engines of the "big three" pacemen Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood and Pat Cummins.

Australian plans for Kohli have been extensive, revolving principally around finding the right lengths to pressure him around the stumps but also to challenge him to play balls outside his eyeline. In all four innings of this series, Kohli has been dismissed by balls drawing him wider than he might have liked to be, with Lyon's effort on the fourth evening in Perth a masterpiece of the concept.

For seven deliveries, Lyon encouraged Kohli to shape his shots towards the legside, whether through deliveries that were flat and straight, or slower off-breaks that turned in the same direction. With his eighth, Lyon twirled the ball down with drift and drop to drag Kohli into a forward defensive posture for the very first time, and watched with obvious delight as the bounce, natural variation in the region of the footmarks and Kohli's somewhat exploratory prod did the rest.

Usman Khawaja's catch was low but never in doubt, while Paine, having said plenty to Kohli over the preceding two days, kept his celebrations within acceptable bounds on the commonsense basis that the battle had been won.

Lyon's seventh dismissal of Kohli in Tests was soon followed by the deception of M Vijay, maintaining a rich run that in the first innings made him the first Australian spinner to take five in a Perth Test since Bruce Yardley as far back as 1982. His past nine first-class innings read as follows: 4-88, 4-83, 5-94, 3-34, 4-86, 2-83, 6-122, 5-67, 2-30 and counting.

Also see: Kohli, Paine collide and exchange words before umpire interrupts

Looking on was the vice-captain Josh Hazlewood, who after play was able to say that so far the planning concocted by the hosts to Kohli and others had been vindicated. Hazlewood insisted that the focus between India's leader and the rest of the batting order had remained finely balanced so as to ensure no one else was able to escape the pressure so evident whenever Kohli takes block.

"We've obviously got our plans and we feel if we can do those plans the majority of the time, that we can get his wicket," Hazlewood said. "We definitely dry the runs up and I think the way Nathan's bowling especially, both sides of the bat this Test, to all their batters he's been phenomenal, but I think when we stray from that plan he's good enough to score the runs.

"It's about just depending on those plans we've talked about and come prepared and put them into action. I probably see [Cheteshwar] Pujara as the big wicket as far as when I'm bowling, the glue that holds them together I think, he's batted the most balls this series and scored nearly the most runs. I see him as a big wicket and [Ajinkya] Rahane as well. So the Nos. 3, 4, 5 as the key wickets and we see it a bit unstable in the other parts of the order. Certainly not all the focus is on Virat."

There was, of course, a mental and verbal element to the Australians' approach, best exemplified by Paine's passive aggressive niggling of Kohli, whether by making conversation with the Indian captain or offering unflattering references to him and his relationships with team-mates.

When Paine stated to Vijay "I know he's your captain but you can't seriously like him as a bloke - you couldn't possibly like him", he was doing what he had promised pre-series, to try and make the environment uncomfortable for India without lapsing into abuse.

So far, this chatter has not strayed into code of conduct territory, but there is always the danger of deterioration over the course of four Tests, much as a pitch can crack and dust up over five days of constant foot traffic. To that end, the umpire Chris Gaffaney seemed eager to ensure that of all the players, the opposing captains in particular "play the game" as a first priority, without letting it become merely the backdrop to personal feuds.

For Hazlewood, the way that Paine has been working to fashion a new Australian balance between hard cricket and greater public trust has been a source of fascination and some admiration, allied as it is to the team's gradual build-up of confidence and poise after the traumas of South Africa.

"He [Paine] keeps things quite calm and composed and he doesn't get too flustered at any stages really and you could see that with the bat today," he said. "The way he batted and he was pretty unlucky to get that one today. In the field he leads very well, nice and calm.

"I think he's just getting more confident as time goes on, whether with the bat or in the field. He's quite an experienced player, and I think he's had time out of the game as well, so he knows himself quite well, not just as a cricketer but as a person, so off the field he's great to talk to about life, and the cricket side takes care of itself. He's been really great."

So while Paine's balance between cordiality and hostility has attracted headlines, the other accumulation of plans, spells and collective contributions with bat and ball has told arguably the more forceful story of this series so far.

There will be a change of course after Adelaide and Perth, given the different nature of the pitches expected in Melbourne and Sydney, but what is not in doubt is the Australians know that, as exemplified by Lyon in particular, their best is good enough for Kohli, and for India.