Inside the city, it’s the Swan river that flows by and much of the wildlife and mineral resources lie on the south. But the real action lies in the north — to be precise, at the WACA ground.

The Indian team arrived here this afternoon to restart their Test campaign here 10 days after the controversial Sydney episode, and 16 years after their last five-day match, hoping that they will be able to shine through in this city that claims to enjoy the maximum sunshine than any other city in Australia.

An important visitor was awaiting the Indian team’s arrival at its team hotel: an excited Gary Kirsten along with his wife, Deborah, interacted with the players. After a little while, Deborah just watched her husband slip into the mode that is expected to be the norm soon.

The new Indian coach, Kirsten, has been texting Anil Kumble for a while now to discuss strategies and today he met the team informally. Though his first formal training session is slated for the morrow, he will officially be taking charge in March after the Australian tour. Kirsten just wants the team to focus on their cricket, and get their mind thinking positive to play the brand of cricket that the Indians have been renowned for.

The team enjoyed a relaxed evening, getting to sample the great cuisine and wines. But Kumble had a busy schedule, with another appointment with a caller on his phone. It was Michael Clarke, the Australian captain-in-waiting, did manage to get through to Kumble finally after admitting to have been trying him for the past few days.

The Australian batsman seems to have sorted out the contentious issues raised by the Indian skipper after the acrimonious Sydney Test. During his talk with Kumble, the Australian middle-order bat had broached the two issues that the Indian skipper had raised in a newspaper column.

“I spoke to Anil and he was actually very supportive and understood me,” Clarke said.

Kumble had slammed Clarke for dishonesty and cited the latter’s standing his ground after being clearly caught in the slips when he was yet to open account in Australia’s second innings, and his claiming a controversial low catch to remove Sourav Ganguly on the final day of the Test.

Clarke, while insisting that he did take the catch clean to remove Ganguly, admitted he waited at the crease more than he should have. But that was becasue he was shocked and disapapointed to get out the way he did after failing to score in the first innings.

“Huss (Mike Hussey) and Haydos (Matthew Hayden) were doing a fantastic job and I was waiting padded up for quite a while dying to get their in the middle. And when I got the chance, I failed again. I went to cut the ball and it came off my glove and went to slip. It was more the shock and disappointment of failing again,” he said.

“We’ve played a fair bit of cricket against each other and he (Kumble) knows I’m not the type to try and harm the game — that was the last thing I would want, to put the game in jeopardy.”

The right-hander also said the pressure to come up with some runs after the first innings failure was the main reason behind standing his ground after being out.

However, he insisted that he did take the catch clean. “The catch, still to this day, I feel 100 per cent positive I caught fairly and I told him (Kumble) that.