A day ahead of the Perth Test, Jasprit Bumrah was taken aback when a journalist referred to him as a “medium pace all-rounder”.

“150 daala maine, fast bowler bol sakte ho (I bowl 150kmph, you can call me a fast bowler).” The stand-in captain’s response left the entire press corps in splits.

Using his whippy arms, Bumrah delivered with surgical precision and tore through the Australian batting on the opening day of the series at the Perth Stadium on Friday. If it is about setting the pace in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy, Bumrah has ensured India hold the aces going into the five-match series.

He ended the day with 4/17 off 10 overs as Australiawere struggling at 67/7 atthe close, still 83 runs behind India’s first innings totalof 150.

“He’s obviously got a fair bit of hyperextension in that elbow and does things a lot of actions won’t let you do. So there’s no surprise he’s been a fantastic bowler across formats for a long time...

“I’m sure there’s something in that release point that’s significant to his action. It’s something that a lot of people can’t do,” Mitchell Starc(6, batting) said at the close.

If there was any debate over his decision to bat first on a green Perth wicket, Bumrah set the Doubting Thomases to rest with an inspirational spell. Bumrah createdfour wicket-taking opportunities with his first 12 deliveries on tour.

Having survived a couple of close calls, debutant Nathan McSweeney was the only casualty during this period when he was out leg before to a good-length ball which curved into his front pad. Marnus Labuschagne could also have followed him had Virat Kohli not spilled a regulation chance at second slip off the second ball he faced.

Bumrah was lethal.

He was averaging 145kmph on the speed gun and brought the game to life with his perfect use of the seam and the bowling crease.

His fiery first spell of 6-2-9-3 had done all the damagebefore he returned to pick one more — rival captain PatCummins — towards the end of the day.

Just as the other opener Usman Khawaja was starting to free his arms against Mohammed Siraj, Bumrah went round the stumps and got a perfectly pitched-up delivery to nip away and take theoutside edge on the way to Kohli’s hands. This time he made no mistake.

Australia’s feathers were truly ruffled when he got one to dip in sharply to trapSteve Smith plumb in front of the stumps for a first-ball duck. Travis Head somehow managed to prevent thehat-trick with an edge to the leg side.

As Bumrah was spitting fire, it rubbed off on debutant Harshit Rana. Labuschagne was all at sea against himcopping a few blows on his body. Head tried to throw his bat around in a bid to counter-attack at the other end.

Rana then came round the wicket to the lefthanded Head and got one to angle in and straighten a touch to beat the outside edge of his bat and knock back the stumps.

The home team was in disarray and flinching in the face of pace. Siraj got into the act with the wickets of Mitchell Marsh and Labuschagne to leave Australia six down.

Bumrah wasn’t done yet. He returned for his third spell and struck with the second delivery to have Cummins caught behind.

He could even have got his fifth wicket off the last ball of the day, a slower one which Starc just managed to lob back to him. The ball fell short by a few yards and Bumrah failed to reach it in time.