Marsh powers Australia to victory in opening ODI against India on lively Perth pitch

Though capricious weather was more redolent of Melbourne than Perth, a well grassed and fiery surface helped Australia hammer India in a classical western ambush, raising the prospect of a similarly lively strip for the first Ashes Test in a month’s time.

Traditionally, the Australian team has no official role in wicket preparation for home series, unlike numerous other nations.

But the pace, bounce, carry and movement on offer for the first international match of the home season proper can only have prompted dressing room pitch requests along the lines of “more like this please” for when the hosts return to face England from November 21.

Without Pat Cummins, Josh Hazlewood and Mitchell Starc were still much too bouncy for the Indian top order. Their incisions effectively decided the contest before two hours of rain turned the game into a mere cameo of the ODI format.

White ball skipper Mitch Marsh (46 not out) and stand-in wicketkeeper Josh Philippe (37) then rounded up the modest target with 29 balls and seven wickets to spare. The Perth Stadium crowd of 42,423 spectators was the most ever to see India play in the west.

For budget-conscious Cricket Australia, the most significant number was arguably 15: once that many overs had been bowled, there had been enough cricket to prevent a rain-induced refund for spectators.

Hazlewood (2-20) and Starc (1-22) had used bounce and movement to defeat the venerable pair of Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli. Their exits demonstrated how difficult it is to take the attack to such bowling on a surface where the ball will fly.

Skipper Shubman Gill was a little unfortunate, glancing Nathan Ellis’ (1-29) first ball into the gloves of Philippe. But there was plenty of bounce to the way Hazlewood disposed of Shreyas Iyer, arguably the closest player India have to England’s Bazballers.

Ben Stokes and company will at least get a couple of weeks to acclimatise to pitches of at least loosely similar character in Perth, including an internal warm-up game at Lilac Hill.

But in slipping to 4-45, the Indians had shown the folly of a schedule that had many of their number playing a Test match on a low, turning pitch in India just five days before this game. Rain ensured those wickets would also be part of DLS calculations.

The partial recovery led by KL Rahul and Axar Patel was duly docked five runs. Matt Kuhnemann also made his presence felt with four canny overs fetching figures (2-26) that were only somewhat dulled by a couple of sixes from Nitish Reddy.

Plenty of venom remained for the use of India’s bowlers. Travis Head was pouched at third man for at least the fourth time in international games on this ground when Arshdeep Singh made use of new ball swing and lavish bounce. Mohammed Siraj then clattered Marsh on the helmet.

His concussion test passed, Marsh carried on a recent reign of terror when it comes to opposition bowlers. Philippe and Matt Renshaw, who took a couple of catches in a white ball debut nearly 10 years after he won a baggy green, helped guide Australia home.

Both Marsh and Renshaw stand some chance of an Ashes role this summer should things fall their way, but neither will be as influential as pitches like this one.