David Warner hits 69-ball ton as Australia dominate India

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 today, 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.