Much of Mitchell Starc’s success was based on the simple formula of exploiting his terrific speed by bowling in an aggressive manner on the full-length. By pushing his length right up, he targets the stumps and as a result, he gets benefited from his pace and movement. While length is something that comes naturally to him, he seems to have lost control over his line since his last five-wicket haul in Tests against South Africa in Durban in March. He has played five matches since then and has returned 12 wickets at an average of 48.66 at a strike rate of 91.44 - a clear statement that he is not as good as he was last year.

While in the first innings, he was in the control of things and did get the ball to dart around, he lost that mojo in the second and dropped it short and wide. He was bowling in the late 130s. When Australia took the new ball, he also struggled to control the swing and drifted two full balls down leg, which subsequently went for four. His failure to get the line right might have something to do with his run-up as he was leaning back a little bit more while being at the crease. And as Glenn McGrath pointed out in the commentary, Starc didn’t use his run-up properly and overstride resulted in him losing the length. In realisation of this lies Starc’s immense contribution to the team.

Cheteshwar Pujara and Ajinkya Rahane batted really well in the first innings to carry India to a position where there was only one result possible - an India win. India were at 260/5 with an effective lead of 275 runs and so they went for a kill post lunch. Rahane, despite being well set in the crease, played a reckless reverse sweep and Rishabh Pant got out the same way he was dismissed by Moeen Ali in the Southampton Test against England. However, the point it, was it required then?

In the first innings, Pujara came down the track often to defend the deliveries that Nathan Lyon was pitching it up and became quite successful in not being dismissed by that. While Lyon was intelligent enough to do the same, he actually made a mistake by not employing a short leg and silly point which means the threat of being caught there was taken out of the equation. It allows Pujara sufficient downtime to plant his front foot across to set his eye in.