Lyon roars way to eight to dominate day one

Leading his beaming teammates from the field an hour before stumps, with career-best figures in his pocket and India's usually ebullient fans in silence after their team was bundled out for 189, Nathan Lyon held a heavily scuffed cricket ball aloft in a wave that was as much vindication as it was celebration.

The unflappable off-spinner, never one to court limelight, looked a touch bashful as he waved to his partner Mel, daughters and brother-in-law standing and applauding in a seating enclosure directly above the visiting team's dressing room at Chinnaswamy Stadium.

The staunchest fans of a cricketer who has, despite his imminent ascension to the undisputed title of Australia's second-greatest spinner after the incomparable Shane Warne, had his credentials scrutinised more harshly and regularly than a freeloader trying to access VIP hospitality at an India Test venue.

Quick Single: The day a killer Lyon eight India

For years it was his apparent inability to bowl Australia to victory on final day pitches at home, even though no finger spinner in the game's long history can claim to have regularly done so, that seemed to rankle.

And in the wake of last year's humiliation at the hands of Sri Lanka, the latest in a string of abject Australian failures in Asia, Lyon was identified by captain, coach and critics as someone whose game was perhaps not best suited to pitches where spinners are supposed to thrive.

Lyon tears India apart with eight-wicket haul

So today's triumph, as India were skittled for 189 and Australia survived 63 minutes unscathed at 0-40 in reply, was not just a watershed given his unprecedented 8-50 came on a first-day pitch against players who can supposedly negotiate that craft in their sleep.

It was a defining moment to which the 29-year-old can point for evermore if his potency as a Test bowler is again questioned.

With the underscore that only one spinner in 140 years of Test cricket has returned better figures in the very first innings of a match – the game's greatest tweaker Muthiah Muralidaran, whose 9-51 in Zimbabwe's opening dig at Kandy in 2002 remains the benchmark.

And while Lyon himself will take quiet pride from his achievement, and the potential it has created to deliver his team a much greater prize, it will also generate warm satisfaction among Australia's brains trust.

Who identified the inability of their best-performed spinner to adapt to Asian conditions, and a need to alter the high-arm, top-spin heavy style of bowling that serves him so well on home pitches to bring results on the vastly different conditions of the subcontinent.

The fact that a brace of Lyon's wickets were the product of India batters playing for spin only to be undone by clever variations that skidded on or held their line represents a victory for his expanding repertoire, and for those who held the belief that he could adapt.

Others were the product of sharp turn and bounce, which brought the close catchers constantly into play and ensured India's normally aggressive batters were left hesitant and – at times – utterly clueless.

With the knowledge that the Bengaluru pitch that offered up that turn and some variable bounce will only become more difficult to bat upon as the match plays out.

Starc strikes after India win toss

Meaning Lyon and his spin partner Steve O'Keefe – the front-liner in Pune who played the role of foil today – should be even tougher to handle on day three and beyond.

That unexpected scoreline doubtless quelled Steve Smith's obvious agitation at losing the toss and missing the opportunity to bat first on a pitch that was tipped to ultimately host spin as inevitably as Bengaluru will deliver traffic chaos.

He paced distractedly, stared at the ground and kicked lightly at the lush grass on the centre wicket block while his rival captain Virat Kohli was being interviewed about his thoughts on what he deemed "a typical Bangalore wicket … pretty good".

That seemed something of an understatement when Rahul helped himself to 10 runs from Mitchell Starc's opening over of the day, a legitimate square drive through point from ball one then a more fortunate slash though the slips cordon from ball six.

Aussies claim two in riveting first session

But from that moment, with the image of India's batters running riot to the delirium of their home fans already starting to form in the minds of many who have witnessed it before, Australia's bowlers effectively applied the clamps.

Only two more boundaries were coughed up in the first hour's play, one of those a genuine edge from Rahul that flew through the gap at third slip off an immaculate Josh Hazlewood.

Who spoke at series' outset about his role being to apply pressure by not conceding runs while the 'attacking' bowlers pushed for wickets.

The other plans that Australia have formulated were often revealed to be canny, if not as fruitful as they should have.

Like the move to shift a fielder from close in on the leg side to a short extra cover for Rahul, when it became clear there was already much spin but variable bounce especially with Steve O'Keefe bowling his low-trajectory left-arm spin.

Quick Single: Kohli offers no shot to Aussie spin again

The premonition that combination would produce a catch in front of the wicket proving correct when Rahul (on 30) lifted a drive to the left of Peter Handscomb in that very fielding position but he was unable to hold the fleeting chance with one hand.

It looked like a squandered opportunity that would prove beyond costly when India nudged their way – albeit with increasing uncertainty against some suffocating bowling and field settings – to 1-72 within a couple of deliveries of lunch.

When Lyon had Cheteshwar Pujara fending a ball that bounced and spun to Handscomb at short leg, and from that moment India were never allowed to grasp the initiative.

A position they have so rarely found themselves in when playing at home on their recent climb to the top of the Test rankings, until they were sat on their collective rump by the Australians at Pune.

As was the case in the opening Test, there was a distinct whiff of role reversal as Australia's bowlers probed away at an opponent who looked unsure of where they might break the shackles to find scoring options, and unconvincing many times when they tried.

That was never better illustrated than Lyon's dismissal of Kohli, the world's number one batsman who was dismissed for the second time in as many innings failing to use his bat to try and impede a delivery heading for his stumps.

Virat Kohli shoulders arms and dismissed ... AGAIN!

Just as in Pune, Kohli was not unhinged by the spin but his inability to read one that didn't and to compound his error he opted to burn one of his team's two reviews in debating the veracity of an lbw decision that was so palpably out he might well have walked.

The hush that descended upon Chinnaswamy Stadium with Kohli's third batting failure in as many innings only lifted in sporadic bursts, and eventually dwindled to a whisper.

If Kohli's wicket was wasteful, then the couple that followed were verging on farcical.

Ajinkya Rahane took off down the pitch only to misread Lyon's straight one that left him floundering more than a metre out of his crease, giving Matthew Wade time to recover a fumble and complete a stumping that made up in brutality what it lacked in subtlety.

Karun Nair, added to bolster India's batting as they cut a bowler (off-spinner Jayant Yadav) to galvanise the middle-order that capitulated so completely in Pune, looked as comfortable as any batter in his 37-minute stay.

The timing and certainty of his strokes underscoring the talent that carried him to a rare triple century in his previous appearance against England late last year, and only raised further questions as to why he was omitted.

On the grounds of the temperament seemed the obvious answer when, having cruised to 26 from 39 balls, he saw a delivery from O'Keefe fizz past his outside edge and then for some reason decided to run at the next one that came along.

Spin twins leave India stumped

Which was marginally slower, pitched slightly shorter but turned in precisely the same manner which left Nair stranded and Wade with a much tidier effort to add to his highlights reel.

India's tea score of 5-168 indicated a battle for survival on a pitch nothing like the "typical Bangalore" track Kohli had interpreted, at a ground where the average first innings score for both teams batting first over the past 10 Tests has been a trice above 400.

And when Ravi Ashwin, technically an all-rounder given his bowling prowess but claims to be India's seventh specialist batter, fell to Lyon a couple of over after the break there was a disturbingly familiar air to the home team's batting frailties.

Only Rahul, who by that point had taken his total to 83 which was almost half his team's total, had shown the concentration and application needed in challenging conditions.

But even he was finding runs tough to come by and he eventually holed out for 90 in trying to break those shackles, as Smith marshalled his bowlers adroitly and all of them played their role while Lyon scythed through the bottom half of India's order.

Claiming a remarkable 5-10 from 38 deliveries in the 50 minutes between tea and calamity as India were rolled over for 189, their third consecutive total of less than 200 on home soil.

And staring at a hat-trick when he first takes the ball in their second innings, a moment India's batters have good cause to approach with trepidation from a bowler of such undoubted pedigree.