Day 5 of the second Test between Pakistan and Australia started with Pakistan needing 314 runs, with two set batters in Babar Azam and Abdullah Shafique at the crease. Both batters batted with complete control in the first session, but breakthroughs on either side of the Lunch break kept Australia motivated enough to turn it around. Mohammed Rizwan soon joined his skipper, and the duo stitched a 115-run partnership that at one point, threatened to take the game away from Australia. Azam fell just short of a miraculous double hundred, but in the dying stages of the game, Rizwan reached his second Test century and ensured that Pakistan saved the game by batting out almost two days.
Let’s look at key points from the final day’s play.
The Day 5 pitch
There were plenty of visible cracks and rough patches outside the right-handers’ off stump from both ends. From the end Nathan Lyon started operating, there were three big rough patches at different lengths – one on a full length around the 4th-5th stump, second around the good length area a bit wider, and then a third on a short of good length.
Despite the pitch ‘looking’ ideal for bowling, especially for spinners, it didn’t offer much, and there wasn’t much of a variable bounce from the surface. Even the turn was not extravagant or a usual fifth-day-like. With no assistance for spinners and pacers, Australia kept focusing on bowling in the right lines, keeping it tight for the batters.
Australian spinners erring on length
In the morning session, Lyon troubled the right-handers, especially Shafique, with a silly point, a forward short leg, a slip, and a leg slip in place. Despite troubling him on occasions, Lyon was guilty of bowling a bit short throughout the day. With rough patches on a slightly fuller length, Lyon didn’t exploit them enough to trouble both the edges. With the length Lyon employed, both right-handers found it easy to just punch the ball off the back foot towards mid-on and mid-wicket.
When Mitchell Swepson, the debutant, was brought in the attack, he bowled two full tosses, both being flicked away to midwicket for boundaries. Swepson didn’t get into his rhythm and erred on the fuller length, even drifting down the leg side on occasions and swept towards fine leg.
Swepson adjusted his length in the second session after having a long discussion with coach Andrew McDonald during the Lunch break and also bowling on side pitches during the break. Post Lunch, Swepson found his ideal length and line, keeping the ball on a fuller side of good length and around the middle and off stump. That length was key in making the batter think whether to come forward or stay back.
Failure to find the right lines and lengths on the final day of the test isn’t new with Australia. Since 2015, Australian spinners have had the worst bowling average and strike rate in the fourth innings of a Test match. Lyon, who generates overspin on the ball rather than sidespin, struggles in conditions where there isn’t much bounce on offer, case in point, subcontinent conditions.
Captains stand up
After Pakistan dominated most of the first session, Cummins brought himself back into the attack 20 minutes before the session break. After bringing the ball into the batters for the first five balls of the over off a good length, Cummins sucked Shafique into the drive off a ball that moved a bit away, inducing an edge that was neatly taken by Smith.
Post Lunch, in his seventh over of the spell, Cummins finally got the outside edge of Fawad Alam. In isolation, that wicket might not raise eyebrows, but it was the setup that brought Alam’s downfall. Before the wicket ball, Cummins, from round the wicket, kept bringing the ball into Alam, with the line being on middle and off stump, even leg stump on occasion. But the wicket ball just straightened a bit after pitching, with the key factor being the line – just outside of off stump. It was an inspiring effort from the Aussie skipper, who toiled hard in extreme heat with a seven-over spell, snapping two key wickets on either side of Lunch.
Azam might have missed out on a deserving double century, but batting for over 400 balls, only the fourth batter to do so in the final innings of a Test, at an 85% control was a herculean task from Pakistan’s skipper. The key to Azam’s game was his reaction to the ball, which was quite late, made possible by not committing to the line or the length of the ball early. He kept playing inside the line of the ball against the pacers, opening up the off-side region, while his balance at the crease allowed him to score of anything aimed at his body.
Pakistan threatened to chase down the highest total in the history of Test cricket, but the slowish pitch didn’t help them in scoring freely. Australia will have a lot of questions to answer going into the final match, whereas Pakistan will be confident before the final match, with Australian players toiling hard on the field for two days.