Sri-Lanka Test match: Jhye Richardson emerges victorious with the pink

Twenty-two-year-old Jhye Richardson came late to cricket but still looks young enough, floppy-haired and fresh-faced, to be bowling in your school’s first XI.

Australian bowler Jhye Richardson on day one of the First Test match between Australia and Sri Lanka at The Gabba in Brisbane yesterday.

Usman, Marnus, Marcus, Kurtis, Travis — say what you like about this Australian team, at least it’s a departure from humdrum Shanes and Shauns, and long way from the Bills, Arthurs and Lindsays of yore.

But Jhye — there’s one from the less-consulted recesses of your baby names dictionary. It sounds like the name of a songbird, or a term from woodwork, to be argued over in a game of Scrabble. Ever come across a Jhye? You have now.

Jhye Richardson celebrates the wicket of Dhananjaya de Silva of Sri Lanka during day one of the First Test match between Australia and Sri Lanka.

It means, apparently, “victorious”. It rhymes, suitably, with spry and shy. For in an era of fast bowling muscle cars, the 178cm and 75kg Jhye Richardson is a sporty MG with wire wheels, lithe and wispy, broad-shouldered but light-framed.

Twenty-two-year-old Richardson came a little late to cricket after a flirtation with Australian football, but still looks young enough, floppy-haired and fresh-faced, to be bowling in your school’s first XI. He’d not have played in this first Test against Sri Lanka had Josh Hazlewood been fit and had the selectors not leaned away at the last moment from Peter Siddle.

Yet there’s been no mistaking the fizz since Richardson was capped by Australia in T20 cricket two years ago. He approaches with a scampering rhythm and over a braced front leg with a proud wrist position achieves a rasping pace on consistently challenging lines.

Short in stature and sparing of bouncers, he is awkward to leave on a length and menaces the stumps consistently — a useful attribute in a bowling attack that has this summer rather lost the habit.

If the Gabba was closer to deserted than full when Dinesh Chandimal won the toss from Tim Paine, there was soon that low hum of expectancy that new fast bowlers are apt to generate, equivalent to the sighting of a fox in a henhouse’s general vicinity.

Lahiru Thirmanne bunted Richardson’s first ball in Test cricket just past short leg, and padded up hesitantly to his fourth. Dimuth Karunaratne was beaten on both edges. Catchers clapped appreciatively. There was also the hint of a nice simpatico between bowler and captain.

Hitting Karunaratne’s back pad soon after, Richardson waived Tim Paine’s proferred review; when Paine reinforced his cordon with a fourth slip, Richardson found the perfect top-of-off length to Chandimal, and Burns gathered a low chance. His first Test spell, of seven overs, was ruled off at a trim one for 17.

David Sandurski’s first Test pitch since leaving the MCG assuredly offered assistance, with an inference that India had been shrewd in batting away the idea of a Gabba Test on their own recent tour. The better to protect the pink ball’s blushes, the surface bore a healthy green sheen. As the afternoon wore into evening, it seemed to go through phases of pine, lime and chartreuse.

Ironically, the day’s most alarming deliveries were probably off-breaks from Nathan Lyon which snagged Karunaratne’s outside edge and scuffed the underside of Roshen Silva’s bicep.

But there was pace here to please. And changing ends after tea, Richardson’s second spell was as zesty as his first, angling in to Kushal Mendis and seaming away, pushing Dhananjaya Silva back then luring him tentatively half-forward.

Jhye Richardson (2nd-R) celebrates with his team after getting the wicket of Sri Lanka's Kusal Mendis.

In these countries’ last Warne-Muralitharan Trophy encounter, Mendis and de Silva were Sri Lanka’s brightest sparks; they offered here only embers. It was Richardson’s figures of two for three in five overs that glowed. The character of the cricket thereafter reverted to a genre familiar in these parts, even if it has not been seen so much lately — an underprepared touring team, as uncomfortable away from home as Australia, cornered, quashed and faintly intimidated.

The mercurial Niroshan Dickwella flailed six boundaries and a six, but with the haste of someone running round a burning house trying to gather together a few precious heirlooms. Otherwise the Australians were efficient, Mitchell Starc completing a long-awaited appointment with 200 Test wickets, Pat Cummins truncating the tail.

That left 25 overs of the pink ball’s illuminated tricks to deal with, and a top order that if not raw is at least medium rare. Fortunately Australia’s seventh opening partnership in its last nine Tests were able to settle in against some affably short and wide bowling.

Marcus Harris looked ever more the part as a Test opener, his mannerisms a kind of compound of David Warner and Chris Rogers. The loss of Burns and Usman Khawaja leaves locals with only Marnus Labuschagne to cheer on today, but a restart in natural light is an opportunity for the rest.

Circumstances suggest that the Australians would be wise not to read too much into the day’s events. The Sri Lankans are a struggling cricket nation undermined by off-field issues being uneasily addressed.

But in a summer where the bad days have substantially outnumbered the good, Paine’s team will take what they can get, particularly when it comes in a guise young, fresh, fit and fast. The rest of us will enjoy getting used to the name.