There was a lot of dead air to fill in commentary boxes, live blogs, group chats and the like as Australia gradually succumbed to its fate and lost the first Test in Perth by 295 runs.

The jeopardy had been blasted out of this match days earlier, but there was still the formality of a fourth innings to complete.

And as Australia's middle order showed glimpses of the competency that was so critically lacking earlier in the match, discussion turned to what had come before and what is next on the horizon.

India's victory had been so complete and Australia's humiliation so visceral that there was no limit to the scope of the causes and recriminations.

Pat Cummins went to Coldplay last week instead of playing an ODI. The watering-down of the Sheffield Shield has killed competition for Test spots in Australia. The David Warner farewell tour last summer set the pursuit of the next long-term opener back years.

All of the above and plenty more were tossed around as potential smoking guns for what is Australia's most damning home Test defeat for nearly a decade, when capitulation to South Africa in Hobart sparked a dramatic overhaul of the team.

There are boogeymen everywhere you look after results like this, but there is also an element of truth in almost every single one.

Preparation for this Test, especially for the batters, was limited and evidently lacking in substance.

There is no tougher task than facing Jasprit Bumrah with a new ball and his tail up, and in both innings the top order completely failed. Maybe there is no real way to ready yourself for such a unique challenge, but a couple of T20s and some centre-wicket practice sessions barely gave them a chance.

But aside from Nathan McSweeney — who will be hoping his inauspicious Test debut is one day remembered more in the Shane Warne ilk than Callum Ferguson — this is the same batting order and XI that has been trusted in so many battles before, at home and abroad.

The issue is form, and what that can do to a batter's mental state.

To watch Travis Head, Mitch Marsh and briefly even Steve Smith bat on day four was to see how easy the game can look when the burden of pressure is removed. Contrast that with the sheer terror on display during those late-afternoon Bumrah barrages and you could never doubt the significance of the mental side of cricket again.

So how do the Australians fix this in less than two weeks, when the series continues in Adelaide?

History suggests they can't.

A stat flashed up on the Channel Seven telecast during play that only three times in the last 20 years, home or away, Australia has lost a single Test and won the series.

You can wind that back even further, according to ABC's Ric Finlay — Austraila has played 240 Test series in its history, but has won only four of them after losing the first Test.

Put in that context, Australia is in a wee spot of bother.

It is highly unlikely that there will be mass changes to the side after this match, a la Hobart 2016.

Most of the selection debate has focused on Marnus Labuschagne, whose recent statistical returns have been made to look even worse by the scrambled and pitiful nature of his innings.

The great draw of Labuschagne when he first broke through and ended Australia's years-long hunt for a reliable number three was the total belief he had in his own game.

He was always unorthodox, but Labuschagne knew what he was and what he was trying to do at all times, and that self-assuredness manifested as confidence in the middle. And that translated to runs.

That version of Labuschagne is some way away from the player we saw at the end of day three, flat on his face after totally bamboozling himself in a desperate attempt to not play a shot.

The selectors will spend the next week or so deciding if the best way to build Labuschagne's confidence back is through a show of faith and selection in Adelaide, or a releasing of the pressure and a spell outside the team. There are no easy answers.

Dropping McSweeney after one Test would be harsh and an admission they had got it wrong to begin with, and as such it is hard to see where any other changes would come from, barring any fitness concerns within the overworked bowling attack.

So Adelaide becomes a significant occasion for this team. Another defeat and the drums will begin to beat louder, to the point where change becomes almost unavoidable.

But there is opportunity too. Pat Cummins's Australia has for years now been in pursuit of a Test series win of real merit, the kind that enhances legacies within the game.

A series victory in England has eluded it, and every battle with India has thus far been a losing one.

In kindly giving the tourists a head start, perhaps Australia is simply setting itself up for its crowning glory. Maybe a triumph in this series, after all we've just witnessed in Perth, will be the one that proves conclusively the mettle of a team that has sometimes come into question for a lack of exactly that.

One way or another, this summer will be defining for so many of these cricketers. It's up to them whether this embarrassment in Perth is a prologue or the final word.

Throughout the summer, we'll look back at some of the best stories and share our own favourite moments from Australia and India's cricket history.

Join us to continue the conversation on our live blogs and on the radio over the summer before the readers' top 10 is revealed ahead of the fifth Test at the SCG from January 3.

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