Bumrah needs somebody to back him up, says Morkel 

Australia displayed their dominance with the bat after a rain-hit opening day, courtesy of breezy tons from Travis Head and Steve Smith, who made 152 and 101 respectively.

After rain played spoilsport on Day 1, the home side resumed play from 28/0 and raced to 405/7 at stumps, with Alex Carey (45) and Mitchell Starc (7) unbeaten in the middle.

Despite Jasprit Bumrah’s 12th five-wicket haul in Tests for the visitors, the hosts had a field day with the bat.

Indian bowling coach Morne Morkel acknowledged the stellar performances of Travis Head and Steve Smith, while also offering an honest assessment of his team's bowling display.

"We were pretty good with the ball this morning, at 3 for 70, but we don’t want to take anything away from two world-class players.”

"Yes, we’ve got the game plans, but are we executing those game plans with a softer ball from both ends? That's something we need to get better at. It's definitely an area that we need to focus on, maybe deeper in the innings," Morkel admitted.

Day 2 report: Head-Smith nullify Bumrah's brilliance as Australia seize control at Gabba

Morkel also heaped praise on the recent form of Travis Head, acknowledging the tough task of countering the southpaw. Head smashed a ballistic 152 off 160, registering his second hundred on the trot after his heroics in Adelaide.

“He is in pretty good form, playing back-to-back innings, we can only give a lot of credit. For us with the ball, if you look at it from overs 50 to 80, it is where we sort of fall short, leaking a little bit, so that is one area we need to get better at.

“Steve Smith, we know, is a guy that can bat back and score runs, and they put a partnership and put us under pressure with a softer ball.”

Reflecting on the strategy to counter Head, Morkel revealed the plan that Rohit Sharma & co. had for the Australian batter and further gave his assessment on the Gabba pitch.

"Our plan for Travis in this game was to bowl over the wicket and bowl straight. He had handled our around-the-stump plan well in earlier games.

“This surface also takes some time to get used to bowling on. You don’t want to be too short or too floaty. Good-length balls were going over the stumps.”

Assessing the overall performance of the Indian bowlers, Morkel praised the efforts of the visiting attack on a tough outing in Brisbane. Nitish Reddy and Mohammed Siraj scalped a wicket each to complement Bumrah’s blitz with the ball.

“Akash (Deep) did well, bowled his heart out, same for (Mohammed) Siraj, he cramped early on in the day, so for him to still run in today and bowl, was great.

(Jasprit) Bumrah is the number one bowler in the world and you need somebody to back him up but honestly, I can’t fault the effort of the other seamers,” Morkel said.

ICC No.1 ranked Test all-rounder Ravinra Jadeja returned to the XI for the third Test, but struggled with the ball on day 2, and speaking on his performance, Morkel said, “Jaddu, coming into this match didn’t have a lot of game time, but he is also a guy who has taken a lot of Test wickets.

“We wanted to bring in the left-arm option, he is also a guy who can offer us a lot with the bat. Unfortunately, today wasn’t his day. He is a world-class player and he will work it out,” he concluded.