Anyone who saw Umesh Yadav tearing into the Australian batsmen here three summers ago would have thought a new age of Indian pace bowling had dawned.

He had been timed to bowl at 154km/h, the fastest ball ever delivered by an Indian. But his experience since then has shown that Australia is not the only country that has had to bring along its young fast bowlers patiently.

It is no coincidence that the two best bowlers in this match, Yadav and Australia's Josh Hazlewood, have been eased into the series and into their careers.

To see Hazlewood dominate the morning with his impeccable length and Yadav spark up the afternoon with his rhythm and fire was to appreciate the virtues of freshness, yes, but also long-term husbandry.

Bounding in at the Gabba on Thursday, Yadav outshone the more experienced Ishant Sharma and Varun Aaron with his energy and accuracy. His extra bounce caught David Warner's leading edge and Chris Rogers' glove down the leg side, and then he induced two mistakes from Shaun Marsh, a skied pull shot that was put down at leg slip and, next over, a nick to first slip. If India are to squeeze a result out of the next three days, they need a fast bowler who can penetrate, the equivalent of the philosopher's stone ever since the retirement of Kapil Dev. With a Test strike rate of 49, Yadav may yet emerge as the man.

Like his captain MS Dhoni, Yadav is an example of the democratisation of Indian cricket. His father was a coalminer and he grew up in a small village outside of Nagpur. Yadav only started playing cricket with a leather ball when he was 19, and the area he represented, Vidarbha, had not produced a Test player when he made his debut at 21. In the meantime, he had applied to join the police force. They didn't want him, but soon the Indian cricket team did.

But the potential has taken a long road to realisation. Since taking 14 wickets here last tour, including 5-93 in Perth, Yadav has played only three Test matches. In that time, his price in the Indian Premier League auction rose from $30,000 to $750,000. But his is not a simple tale of IPL lucre corrupting Test cricket talent. Rather, Yadav at 27 is still learning his craft.

Why has it taken so long? Neil D'Costa, who coached Vidarbha's cricket academy, said  Yadav had been hampered by injuries and also the slow acquisition of fast-bowling know-how. "He needed to learn that to be a good bowler it's not just about running in and bowling five fast overs," D'Costa said. "A Test bowler might put in 30 overs and take three for 90, and that's a good innings of work."  As Yadav had  moved from tennis-ball to leather-ball cricket only seven years ago, he must still be considered a work in progress, he said.

Rather than slow Yadav's progress, D'Costa thought that limited-overs cricket had benefited him. With his first big pay cheque, he paid for an extension to his mother's house, and he has supported his family throughout his professional cricket career. The discipline of short-form cricket taught him accuracy and how to bowl to plans. He showed this on Thursday, when Dhoni set him a leg-side catching cordon and he worried Rogers and Marsh into error.

Yadav is  playing only his 38th first-class game, Hazlewood his 28th. Mitchell Starc is playing his 44th. These are still baby fast bowlers,  the results  predictably unpredictable. Young bowlers get injured trying to run in hard, bowl fast and contort their bodies in search of new varieties of swing. They lose their control and find it again as they get to know their games on the public stage. The frustrations in developing these pacemen are not only Australia's. Nor, on this day, was the satisfaction in success.