Aussie quicks eager to exploit Delhi pitch Delhi has form as a dangerous pitch and Australia's quicks aim to exploit any terrors in the wicket with some fearsome fast bowling in the fourth Test on Saturday. Trailing three-nil in the four-match series, Australia's batsmen showed their usual ability to get starts and get out on Friday's opening day of play, slumping to 7-136 before reaching 8-231 at stumps thanks to some determined efforts from their tail. No.9 Peter Siddle will resume on a career-best 47 not out with James Pattinson on 11. Steve Smith played a mature knock of 46 off 145 balls with three fours and two sixes, adding 53 for the eighth wicket with Siddle. Opener Ed Cowan (38) and No.3 Phil Hughes (45 including 10 boundaries) also got starts. Hughes was struck on the helmet by a nasty rising delivery from Ishant Sharma and played a ball onto his stumps in the same over. Smith says a score of 280 would be a reasonable effort on this pitch. Offspinner Ravi Ashwin led the way for India with 4-40 off 30 overs, giving him 26 wickets for the series. "It's not too often you see the wicket turning like that the first day of a Test match," Smith said. It is going to be pretty tough. There's not too many balls that go through the top like the one that hit Hughesy. If we'd seen a few more of those they might have called the match off. It is going to be good for us to bowl (on that pitch). It's not too often on the first day of a Test match you see a ball going through the top like that and hitting a bloke in the grille (of the helmet). That would have shaken him up a little bit. It definitely would have shaken me up. A one-day clash between India and Sri Lanka in December 2009 was abandoned in Delhi due to a dangerous pitch. The tourists made five changes on Friday. Shane Watson was recalled from his one-match "homeworkgate" suspension to take over as Australia's 44th Test captain in the absence of injured skipper Michael Clarke. Australia boast a strong pace attack of Siddle, James Pattinson and Mitchell Johnson, plus spinners Nathan Lyon and Glenn Maxwell. In sunny conditions on a dusty, cracked pitch already starting to show signs of variable bounce at Delhi's Feroz Shah Kotla ground, the visitors once again had no answer to India's spinners. Australia haven't lost four matches in a Test series since the 1978/79 Ashes, which was during the turmoil of the breakaway World Series Cricket years. Watson's men were well-placed at lunch at 2-94 after losing the wickets of David Warner for a duck and Hughes. Five wickets tumbled for 30 in a middle-order collapse including the key dismissal of Watson stumped for 17.