Half-centuries from Travis Dowlin and Denesh Ramdin have nudged the West Indies to a total of 228 at lunch on day three, but Australia remains well on top of the opening Test at the Gabba.

Dowlin, who was only called into the side shortly before the toss when veteran batsman Ramnaresh Sarwan failed to overcome a back injury, held together his side's innings with a determined knock of 62.

Dowlin helped whittle the home side's lead down to 252 runs, but the Windies must now throw the pads on once more after Australia captain Ricky Ponting opted to enforce the follow-on.

It was just the third time in Ponting's career as skipper that he has opted to use the follow-on.

Thirty-two-year-old Dowlin, who debuted against Bangladesh earlier this year while his more credentialed team-mates were on strike, provided the main story of the morning session when he treated a hat-trick ball from Nathan Hauritz with utter disdain.

Dowlin had previously showed little to no aggression in his four-hour marathon dig, but with the field up for Hauritz's potential milestone, he danced down the wicket and launched the ball to long-on.

He was only rewarded with two runs, and was dismissed later in the over when a similar shot finally put an end to an underwhelming Windies innings, with Shane Watson reeling in a good catch in the deep.

Hauritz finished with figures of 3-17 to be the pick of the bowlers alongside Mitchell Johnson (3-75).

Dowlin resumed on Saturday unbeaten on 40, with the tourists struggling at 5-134 in their response to Australia's imposing total of 8-480 (declared).

As was the case late on the second day, the No.3 was relegated to a supporting role while the fluent strokeplay of Ramdin took centre stage.

After surviving an unsuccessful decision review following a strong LBW shout from Peter Siddle, Ramdin became the first Windies batsman to notch a half-century when a well-timed straight drive saw a fuller ball from Siddle race to the rope.

Ramdin's entertaining stay at the crease, which yielded 54 runs from 55 balls, came to an end in the eighth over of the day when he was drawn into an ill-fated drive by Johnson.

Sulieman Benn proved to be in just as much a hurry as Ramdin, adding 28 runs from 32 deliveries before popping up a leading edge that Siddle had plenty of time to run around from mid-off and get under.

Jerome Taylor added eight but soon became Hauritz's first victim for the game when an edge onto his pads saw short-leg Simon Katich come into play.