Undercooked Australia lose the plot in Perth

In an ODI at the WACA in January 1997, in the dying days of Mark Taylor's ODI career when Australia failed to make the tri-series final that summer, a local larrikin hoisted a home-made sign in the outer during Australia's loss to the West Indies.

It read: "LOST - The Plot. If found please return to the Australian dressing room. Ask for Tubby."

That same Perth larrikin could have dusted off that same sign and hoisted it at Perth Stadium late on the third afternoon, with "Tubby" crossed out and "Pat" written instead.

That might be harsh on the Australian team and their captain Pat Cummins. But it certainly seemed that way, at least momentarily, on an afternoon when Yashasvi Jaiswal and Virat Kohli plundered centuries as India charged to a declaration before Australia lost 3 for 12, including Cummins as a nightwatcher, in pursuit of an astronomical target of 534.

Australia have been humiliated by India over three days, with further humiliation set on the fourth but it appears that they will be spared a fifth day. A team normally so calm, so calculated, so well planned and so clinical in their execution, have looked the exact opposite so far.

It is so rare to see this team, led by Cummins and Andrew McDonald, look so out of control of a game. It is so rare to see an Australian side so completely outgunned at home.

India have thoroughly outplayed them so far. That can happen when India has as much talent as they do. They deserve all the plaudits. Australia are allowed to have an off game. Five-match series allow time to recover.

But there were a series of signs from Australia that can only be seen as red flags about their state of preparedness for this series.

They hadn't played Test cricket for nearly eight months. They had all that time to prepare their players down to the minute. They carefully plotted each individual's preparation, playing them in specific games, resting them from others. Like Christof's direction in The Truman Show, it was perfectly stage managed down to the most minute of details.

But as the lights went on and the cameras rolled it has all unraveled, at least for the moment. They bemoaned conditions changing on them on the second day, unable to adjust to the situation on the run despite claiming to bounce in and out of a number of plans.

Jaiswal dominated the game, yet Travis Head, seen pre-series as a potential surprise match-up for the adventurous young tyro, bowled one over at him in the first 77 overs of the innings.

Later in the day, the final overs of India's innings summed up Australia's muddled thinking. Marnus Labuschagne came onto bowl an over of bouncers at Kohli with three men in the deep on the legside. He bowled two chest-high long hops, one that Kohli thumped between two of those sweepers to the longest boundary on the ground, the other he pumped through a vacant mid-on.

Labuschagne then decided to bowl legspin in his next over. Something he had not prepared for, having bowling almost exclusively medium pace in Sheffield Shield cricket in the lead-up and in the nets. Cummins had even said publicly he prefers Labuschagne bowling legspin. Sure enough, his first leg break from a short run was a no-ball. He had to remeasure his run-up. Four balls later, Nitish Kumar Reddy launched him into the stands. In Labuschagne's next over, Kohli brought up his century with another boundary.

Labuschagne was called into the attack because Australia's allrounder Mitchell Marsh had run out of gas. The last three balls of his 12th over were each thumped to the fence by Reddy. One of them was a half-tracker at 119kph. Marsh has taken three wickets in the match including Jaiswal for 161 with what was a pretty gentle short and wide offering. His 17 overs across three days are the most overs he has bowled in a game in three years, having bowled just four since injuring his hamstring in the IPL in April. He played two Shield games before taking a month of paternity leave prior to this Test match, but did not bowl a ball in either of them.

He was not the only one who didn't bowl in Shield cricket. Cummins didn't play Shield cricket. He rarely does. He likes to come into a big summer fresh as the best of Australia's bowlers Josh Hazlewood noted, and it has been successful for him in the past.

"He looks his normal self to me," Hazlewood said. "I can usually pick up with the other two quicks when they're a little bit off and I didn't see any signs of that, maybe a little bit of rust in the first innings. You sort of take the freshness, I think, over that and throughout this game, he obviously, I think, got better, and you'll just see him get better as he goes along, I think. The freshness, I think, trumps playing that Shield game for him."

Cummins bowled 40.4 overs in the match, which as Hazlewood noted, was the most of all three of Australia's quicks. But his accuracy and relentlessness was nowhere near what you expect from Cummins. No Australian quick was driven more often. Driving Cummins in Perth is usually a rarity. Kohli and Jaiswal did it twice in his 19th over in both sumptuous and dismissive fashion. For the record, Cummins has 10 wickets at 43.30 in his last four Test matches, which have mostly been played in helpful bowling conditions.

Another rarity was Cummins walking out as the nightwatcher. He has never done it in his career. He has been Australia's lower-order safety valve and match-winner at No.8 in recent times. Australia were aware of how valuable lower order runs would be in this series with Cummins their most important batter amongst the bowlers.

Yet when Australia's makeshift opener, Nathan McSweeney, was trapped plumb lbw by Jasprit Bumrah, it was Cummins and not the normal nightwatcher Nathan Lyon who strode to the crease with 20 minutes of batting to go.

"We've just been talking the last few weeks about potentially having two options, and [Lyon] obviously put a fair shift bowling," Hazlewood said. "So Pat put his hand up to do it tonight. I think we'll see both guys used throughout the throughout the series."

If it was planned, it is a startling plan and further evidence of Australia's uncharacteristic thinking.

That a nightwatcher was needed at all so far out from stumps was also further evidence of the worries around Labuschagne. Australia's No.3 has not needed a nightwatcher for three years despite having an occasion to use one for him in Wellington earlier this year.

He was asked to bat anyway, as Cummins lasted just eight balls. And Labuschagne proved why Cummins had batted. He tried to leave a ball from Bumrah that thundered into his pads. For the second time in the match he reviewed. For the second time in the match it was smashing the stumps. Labuschagne trudged off as stumps were called having posted his seventh single-digit score in his last eight Test innings.

The next best No.3 in Australian domestic cricket had also been out twice lbw while opening in this Test match.

Hazlewood was asked how Australia's batters try and climb out of this hole tomorrow.

"You probably have to ask one of the batters that question. I'm sort of relaxing and trying to get a bit of physio and a bit of treatment, and I'm probably looking mostly towards the next Test and what plans we can do against these batters."

You can forgive Hazlewood and Australia for looking ahead despite this game not officially being over yet. The series is far from over, with plenty of time for Australia to rectify the situation.

But the road further ahead than the one immediately in front of them tomorrow looks even more worrying, unless they can find the plot they appear to have lost momentarily in Perth.