Australia are staring down a mountainous fourth-innings chase to steal an unlikely win in The West Test.

The match is almost out of Australian clutches after just two days. India had the best of the batting conditions on Saturday — 24 hours after a record-breaking 17 wickets tumbled — and lead by 218 runs.

They will resume on Sunday at 0-172.

Australia did not take a wicket between lunch and stumps and only one batter fell after the first half-hour. Yashasvi Jaiswal is on 90, nearing an against-the-odds century and KL Rahul, the most assured Indian batter in both innings, is on 62.

The Perth Stadium pitch grew better for batting on Saturday, but there are now fears a warm weekend will encourage treacherous cracks Australia must deal with.

The West Australian understands both teams told curators after the opening day they were satisfied with the state of the pitch.

Jaiswal, the Indian star boy with a remarkable tale of a rise from Mumbai slums to cricketing prodigy, cashed in on those conditions and an Australian team lashed for poor body language with his maiden half-century away from home.

After battling to defend the hard length delivered time and again by Josh Hazlewood early in his innings, Jaiswal crafted a special knock.

The 22-year-old drove delightfully through cover when Australia offered him width and pulled out a stunning party trick when he straight-bat flicked a Pat Cummins short ball over the cordon for four.

The only real chance he offered was am edge into the cordon that caught Usman Khawaja on the back foot and fell just short. Moments later he whipped Cummins for six and belted Nathan Lyon for another.

The hapless Aussies had got no answers, so turned to a short-ball barrage under the stadium shadows to ask some new questions.

This opening partnership could tomorrow become the greatest by an Indian pair in Australia, with Sunil Gavaskar and Kris Srikkanth’s 191, made in Sydney in 1986 in their sights. It is already the second-best by a travelling pair in Perth.

Australia were ground into the dirt just 24 hours after they had rolled the same team for 150. They tried Marnus Labuschagne’s better-than-medium-pacers and Travis Head with the ball as the push got desperate, but have copped heat over their standards in the field.

“That hour leading into tea I thought they looked like they were going through the motions, it’s unacceptable really. It’s day two of an important series,” former batter Greg Blewett told Channel 7 and 7plus.

Australia’s day was wrapped in a neat bow by two sledging stoushes involving Mitchell Starc.

“I bowl faster than you Harshit. I bowl faster than you. I’ve got a long memory,” he said after fending off a Harshit Rana bouncer. Hours later Jaiswal told the Aussie paceman “it’s coming too slow”. He had taken the game out of their hands.

Jaiswal had struggled in India’s tour of South Africa earlier this year, despite blistering early-career form on home soil, where he can attack spin and get forward to the ball.

His spot could have been in jeopardy for the second Test in Adelaide, with skipper Rohit Sharma and injured gun Shubman Gill both a strong chance to return to the team.

There were briefly concerns over Mitch Marsh’s fitness in the middle session when he appeared to pull up lame during his third over and took more than an hour to return to the crease.

Marsh didn’t bowl at all in first-class cricket in the build-up to the Test summer.

“Mitch looked really sore when he bowled that delivery … as he came down through his follow-on, he just looked like he was on ice a little bit. A little stiff…” batting great Matthew Hayden told Channel 7 and 7plus.

Labuschagne then debuted his own medium-pace soon after, which reached speeds of above 135km/h as part of a short-ball attack with two fielders out on the hook.

Australia will need to take 10 wickets in rapid time on Sunday if they are any chance of climbing back into a contest they were the driver’s of on Friday.

They have never won a match where they gave up less than 150 but still trailed on the first innings.

Jasprit Bumrah sealed a five-wicket haul after unleashing the best spell of bowling Perth Stadium has ever seen on the first evening.

Australia were bowled out for 104 on the stroke of lunch on day two after Starc faced the most balls of any player in the first innings to briefly India’s wicket-fest on hold.

But his dismissal, caught by Rishabh Pant trying to pull a ball through a vacant mid-wicket, left Australia 46 runs behind India’s 150 from the opening day.

Starc and Hazlewood batted for an hour-and-a-half to add 25 runs.

The left-armer copped a worrying blow to the helmet and another to the arm on his way to 26, facing 112 deliveries.

They were eight wickets down when they passed 76, their lowest score ever in Perth, and nine down when they cleared 83, the country’s worst-ever total against India.

Bumrah’s show continued into a second day when he removed what appeared to be Australia’s last great hope, Alex Carey, with his very first ball. He finished with 5-30 off 18.

Bumrah bowled 108 balls and looked like taking a wicket with almost all of them. Ironically, the ball that claimed Carey for 21 wasn’t one of them.

The wicket-keeper, who resumed on 19, couldn’t stop his hands following a Bumrah ball he didn’t need to play at and he edged behind to Pant.

Eyes will now turn to Indian megastar Virat Kohli, who continued a worrying form decline in the first innings when he was dismissed for just five.

But he is destined to arrive at the crease in a much more favourable position in this match and could be given a platform to hard launch his last and perhaps most important tour of Australia yet.

The former captain walked onto the Optus Stadium playing surface to clap his batters off and then receive throwdowns in front of an adoring crowd.