After a captivating Day 2 in Melbourne, Pat Cummins took two wickets to put Australia ahead, including the delivery of the day, which may have perhaps been the Test. Prior to losing five wickets in the last session, Pakistan played a lot of sensible crickets throughout the first two thirds of the day.
After being held off by Marnus Labuschagne on Day 1, Pakistan’s pacers made quick progress on Wednesday as the two sides were met with bright sunshine and challenging batting conditions. After reaching his half-century, Labuschagne was dismissed by the brilliant Aamer Jamal, who emerged as the best bowler for Pakistan with three wickets. Hasan Ali, Mir Hamza, and Shaheen Afridi all chose two each since Australia was unable to form cohesive partnerships. Despite Mitchell Marsh’s explosive 60-ball 41, Australia only achieved 131 runs at the cost of seven wickets in the morning session. In an attempt to try harder in favorable circumstances, Pakistan handed up 52 runs in extras, but their catches were outstanding.
Australia’s quicks dominated the afternoon session, which was a welcome respite from the storm conditions. Pakistan’s openers, Abdullah Shafique and Imam Ul Haq, did enough to withstand the relentless off-stump channel lines of Josh Hazlewood, Mitchell Starc, and Pat Cummins, who were attempting to probe the outside edge. As a result of the constant pressure, Nathan Lyon was able to get Imam to nick a flighted full ball to Labuschagne at first slip.
At the beginning of the last session, the Pakistani pair of Shan Masood and Shafique changed their strategy. On the spinner’s first ball after Tea, Masood glided down the track to knock a four down the ground, aimed for Lyon. Lyon’s post-tea session ended after 4 overs when Cummins made a double bowling change after even Starc went for 13 in an over. While this was going on, Shafique reached his fifty, and Masood was getting close to his as well, but Cummins flipped the entire session—as well as the day—around.
In the course of two overs, he produced a back-of-a-length ball that ducked in and penetrated Babar Azam’s defense, capping Shafique’s stay with a neat catch off his own bowling. Masood quickly reached his fifty, but Cummins removed the Pakistan skipper and called Lyon back after a few beers. Masood intended to take him on again, but Lyon saw through it and bowled slower in the air, forcing Mitchell Marsh at cover to misjudge an outside edge on a massive smash.
Australia increased their efforts to crack Pakistan’s middle order, and Hazlewood was the perfect tool for the job. Saud Shakeel was removed from the field by his using a nip-backer on a length that went through the bat-pad gap. Agha Salman tried a drive away from his body to nick the ball behind with less than ten overs remaining in the batting, giving Cummins his third wicket of the game. Pakistan lost by 124 runs after that, going from 68/1 at tea to 194/6 at stumps.
Brief Scores:
Pakistan 194/6 (Abdullah Shafique 62, Shan Masood 54; Pat Cummins 3-37, Nathan Lyon 2-48) trail Australia 318 (Marnus Labuschagne 63, Mitchell Marsh 41; Aamer Jamal 3-64, Mir Hamza 2-51, Hasan Ali 2-61, Shaheen Afridi 2-85) by 124 runs
