The top-order demons that appeared destined to haunt Australia after being dealt the toughest of Adelaide’s day-one conditions were exorcised in a final session that shapes as being a series-defining stanza of play for Pat Cummins’ embattled side.

Mitchell Starc backed up his first-ball-of-the-Test strike with the best figures of his 91-Test career (6-48 from 14.1 overs) to skittle India for just 180 after their returning captain Rohit Sharma gladly accepted the chance to bat first after winning the toss.

With India having gone 1-0 up in the series opener after a similarly middling first-innings total, Jasprit Bumrah cut an ominous figure as he seized a new pink ball just as dusk was cutting a striking orange-sky backdrop and ideal bowling conditions for Test cricket’s premier bowler.

But second-gamer Nathan McSweeney (38no from 97 balls) and his under-pressure mate Marnus Labuschagne (20no from 67) defied the visitors’ fired-up seamers with resolve and skill lacking in Australia’s humbling first-up defeat in Perth.

In fact the only haunting moments during the night’s exhilarating passage of play came when Adelaide Oval’s four light towers mysteriously went dark twice in the space of 10 minutes when batting was at its toughest.

Australia overcame the spooky occurrences to reach stumps with their score on 1-86, trailing India by 94, with the loss of opener Usman Khawaja to Bumrah’s ninth wicket of the series their only stumble.

The efforts of McSweeney and Labuschagne to neuter the fizzing pink ball under the occasionally faulty floodlights came on the back off early hard work. They took 17 and 18 balls respectively to get off the mark.

McSweeney profited from a slice of luck on 3 when Rishabh Pant was wrong-footed by an outside edge induced by Bumrah, with the ricochet off the wicketkeeper’s glove leaving first slip Rohit Sharma with a nasty knock to the thumb.

But the 25-year-old, still in only his fifth first-class innings opening the batting, prompted roars of approval from the 50,186-strong crowd when he flashed back-to-back boundaries off Nitish Kumar Reddy in the final hour of play.

The sentiment only grew when Shubman Gill let a simple ground ball through his legs to allow another McSweeney boundary, one of six hit by the hometown boy who moved to Adelaide from his native Brisbane four years ago.

Labuschagne copped the brunt of India’s taunts, with Rohit’s men eager to compound the woes of Australia’s No.3 who has been publicly urged by his side’s leaders to show more intent to get out of a rut that saw him averaging 13.66 from the 10 Test innings before this one.

After navigating a typically probing burst from Bumrah, Labuschagne had the pink Kookaburra piffed in his direction by an enraged Mohammad Siraj after the Queenslander pulled away during his run-up.

Siraj had little interest in Labuschagne pointing out that a punter with a beer-cup snake as long as his torso had been waddling behind the sight screen.

McSweeney and Labuschagne shared an understated embrace as they walked off with no further damage done before the close, their 62-run partnership promising to become even bigger when they resume in the day time on Saturday afternoon.

Four times has a wicket fallen on the first ball of a Test in Australia, half of those now thanks to Starc, whose rivalry with Yashasvi Jaiswal was elevated further when the tyro’s tentative step across his stumps was no match for the left-armer’s away-swinger.

The leg-stump line and curve of Starc’s initial offering bore some resemblance to his other first-ball breakthrough with the opening delivery of the 2021-22 Ashes when Rory Burns was bowled behind his legs.

Gill, who returned fire with consecutive fours from Starc’s first over in his comeback match from a thumb injury, counter-attacked with KL Rahul (37 off 64) in an innings-high 69-run stand.

Their union would have worth significantly less had Rahul not been given two lifelines from Scott Boland’s first five balls of the match. A front-foot no-ball voided a gloved-behind catch to Alex Carey, before Khawaja dropped his third catch of the series and his second at first slip.

Misfortune followed Boland, who also had Pant dropped by McSweeney (a tough chance in the gully when the left-hander was on 5) and would have had the Nitish Kumar Reddy lbw (on 0) if Cummins had not mistakenly deemed the allrounder, promoted one spot to No.7 for this Test, had hit it.

Boland’s successful return after a 516-day absence from international cricket was nonetheless capped by pinning Gill (31 off 51) and Rohit Sharma (3) lbw in the pair’s first hits of the series.

Rohit, who batted down the order for the first time in six years to keep the match-winning opening pair of Jaiswal and Rahul together, is now averaging 12.36 from his last 11 Test innings, a spell that now includes seven single-digit scores.

When Pant was undone by a Cummins lifter as vicious as the skipper’s ensuing reaction, India had lost 5-40. Reddy’s enterprising hand, highlighted by taking 21 off one Boland over, ensured the visitors added 71 for the final four wickets.

The 21-year-old finished with 42 from 54 balls.

NRMA Insurance Men’s Test Series v India

First Test: India won by 295 runs

Second Test: December 6-10: Adelaide Oval, 3pm AEDT (D/N)

Third Test: December 14-18: The Gabba, Brisbane, 11.20am AEDT

Fourth Test: December 26-30: MCG, Melbourne, 10.30am AEDT

Fifth Test: January 3-7: SCG, Sydney, 10.30am AEDT

Australia squad (for second Test): Pat Cummins (c), Sean Abbott, Scott Boland, Alex Carey (wk), Brendan Doggett, Josh Hazlewood, Travis Head, Josh Inglis, Usman Khawaja, Marnus Labuschagne, Nathan Lyon, Mitch Marsh, Nathan McSweeney, Steve Smith, Mitchell Starc, Beau Webster

India squad: Rohit Sharma (c), Jasprit Bumrah (vc), Yashasvi Jaiswal, KL Rahul, Abhimanyu Easwaran, Devdutt Padikkal, Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli, Rishabh Pant, Sarfaraz Khan, Dhruv Jurel, Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Mohammed Siraj, Akash Deep, Prasidh Krishna, Harshit Rana, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Washington Sundar. Reserves: Mukesh Kumar, Navdeep Saini, Khaleel Ahmed, Yash Dayal