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<\/p>\nIn shades of the Cape Town calamity that unfolded earlier this week, Australia struck back from their own bating implosion to destroy Pakistan and set up a possible series clean sweep thanks to a withering spell from seamer Josh Hazlewood.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
In a rollicking extended last session, a total of 11 wickets \u2013 12 if the one that fell on the final ball before tea is included \u2013 tumbled for the addition of 78 runs in less than 30 overs on a pitch that betrayed no hint of such carnage in the five hours beforehand.<\/p>\n
Having snatched an unlikely 14-run first innings lead on the back of another heroic bowling effort from rookie allrounder Aamir Jamal, Pakistan ended day three of the final NRMA Insurance Test in disarray at 7-68 and holding an overall lead of 82.<\/p>\n
While the advantage is decidedly skinny, the evidence of that chaotic last session underscore the challenges batting presents on a dying day four track with Pakistan’s first innings top scorer Mohammad Rizwan (6no) holding the key to his team finding a lead they might conceivably defend.<\/p>\n
While the initial damage was wrought by the new-ball, it was Hazlewood’s second spell at day’s end that netted him the scalps of Saud Shakeel, Sajid Khan and Salman Ali Agha in the course of a solitary maiden over that had the SCG rocking in euphoric delirium.<\/p>\n
The procession of wickets might have resembled the two-day South Africa-India Test at Cape Town which became the shortest in the game’s history, but it also carried a strong whiff of Steve Waugh’s memorable last-ball Ashes hundred at the same ground 21 years ago.<\/p>\n
In a near-carbon copy of Pakistan’s first innings on Wednesday, the visitors lost two wickets \u2013 opener Abdullah Shafique and captain Shan Masood \u2013 in just eight balls to be reeling at 2-1 before debutant Saim Ayub launched a nerveless counter-punch.<\/p>\n
Saim’s defiance included an audacious uppercut for six off Mitchell Starc who had begun the rot by dismantling Shafique’s stumps in his opening over, but ended when trapped lbw Nathan Lyon as Australia’s resurgence continued in the shadow of stumps on day where the action was back-ended.<\/p>\n
The young opener’s exit was followed by soon after by crucial wicket of former skipper Babar Azam who was neatly caught behind off renowned partnership breaker Travis Head, before Hazlewood ran amok.<\/p>\n
Despite trailing 0-2 in the three-match NRMA Insurance Series with the Benaud-Qadir Trophy in Australia’s keeping, Pakistan became the first team to hold a first-innings lead over Australia on their home patch since India at the MCG in December, 2020.<\/p>\n
That historic India campaign also represents the last occasion Australia tasted defeat in front of their own fans, with the three-wicket win at the Gabba weeks later sealing a 2-1 series triumph.<\/p>\n
If Pakistan are to somehow emulate their near neighbours and bitter rivals by defying Australia and history, they owe a large debt of thanks to Aamir whose first-innings tail-end runs and 6-69 with the ball today place him in rare company.<\/p>\n
The 27-year-old, who also snared six-for in his maiden Test bowling innings at Perth last month, became the first player to score 80 or above and snare six wickets in the first innings of a Test match since legendary Australia allrounder Keith Miller managed it against West Indies at Jamaica in 1955.<\/p>\n
Australia had appeared destined to take a first-innings lead despite disciplined Pakistan bowling that made scoring tough on an increasingly two-paced pitch as Mitchell Marsh and Alex Carey fashioned a vital sixth-wicket stand.<\/p>\n
Joining forces after Australia’s middle-order had imploded with the loss of Steve Smith (38), Marnus Labuschagne (60) and Travis Head 10, the pair put on an innings-high partnership of 84 from 138 balls, at a rate none of their teammates were able to match.<\/p>\n
But when Carey was knocked over by the last delivery before tea from off-spinner Sajid Khan which grazed the left-hander’s jumper before clipping his leg bail, the SCG descended into late afternoon pandemonium when play resumed.<\/p>\n
Including Carey’s dismissal, Australia lost a barely credible 5-10 from just 20 balls as Aamir followed up his day one batting heroics \u2013 where he pummelled 82 from 97 balls faced \u2013 with the second five-wicket haul of a Test career spanning barely two and half matches.<\/p>\n
The carnage began in the first full over after the break when Marsh attempted to muscle Aamir over the off-side and spooned a waist-high catch to Shan at mid-off.<\/p>\n
It was the reprise of a shot that might have cost Marsh his wicket earlier in the day when, having scored seven and with Australia still more than 100 runs in arrears, he mistimed a lofted drive from Salman Ali Agha that looked likely to be accepted by Saim.<\/p>\n
But the debutant, who had already endured the ignominy of a second-ball duck in his maiden innings then turfing a simple slips catch off David Warner yesterday morning, was on his heels at mid-off set deep and failed to hold the low chance as he lunged forward.<\/p>\n
Given Marsh went to the crease averaging more than 90 in the series to date, and went on to post his fourth half-century from five knocks in his resurgent summer, it loomed as a turning point in this finely balanced contest.<\/p>\n
And as the allrounder’s eventual removal 43 runs later conclusively proved, there was little that stood between him and the end of Australia’s innings if Pakistan’s bowlers and faltering fielders got it right.<\/p>\n
Two balls after claiming that key wicket, Aamir claimed Australia skipper Pat Cummins who clean missed a knee-high full toss that dipped late past the inside of his bat and thudded into the knee roll of both pads only for umpire Michael Gough to deem it not out.<\/p>\n
But the insistently incredulous bowler convinced his captain to call for a review, and technology confirmed the ball would have thudded into leg stump.<\/p>\n
In his next over, Aamir squared up Nathan Lyon who squirted a catch to gully that Saud Shakeel juggled but ultimately held as he fell to the ground, although it took some close scrutiny from third umpire Joel Wilson to adjudicate the ball had not grazed the ground.<\/p>\n
And it took just two more deliveries for Aamir to wrap up a remarkable spell when Hazlewood stepped away and tried to flay him behind point only for the resultant edge to be snared smartly at second slip.<\/p>\n
From 5-289 and within touching distance of a first-innings advantage, Australia had undergone the sort of batting implosion they had hoped would remain rooted in 2023 where they were an uncomfortably common occurrence to pocket a 14-run deficit.<\/p>\n
On the evidence provided by Smith and Labuschagne across the day’s first session, when the usually fluent duo struggled to score at much above two runs per over, that lead might have been potentially greater than the small sum of its parts.<\/p>\n
Thanks largely to Aamir’s late-innings enterprise with the bat, Pakistan had piled on runs at more than four an over on day one but it was a vastly tougher proposition when their pace bowlers opted for a relentless short-pitched strategy in today’s opening hour.<\/p>\n
After Labuschagne made a sprightly start by clipping the morning’s fourth delivery from Mir Hamza off his pads to the mid-wicket rope, he and Smith then played out 33 consecutive deliveries \u2013 including five successive maidens from Hamza and Hasan Ali \u2013 before their next run emerged.<\/p>\n
At that stage, the innings scoring rate of 2.28 per over was the lowest for Australia in a Sydney Test since they were famously bowled out for 111 in 56.3 overs (at a rate of 1.96) by South Africa in the final match of their 1993-94 visit.<\/p>\n
The sequence was eventually broken when Labuschagne pushed a single to extra cover off Hamza before Smith summarily dispatched the same bowler to the cover boundary three balls later.<\/p>\n
The choke-hold Pakistan’s seamers had exerted was broken when Sajid returned to the attack in place of Hasan, and Labuschagne immediately unfurled a couple of sweet cover drives against the spin to get Australia’s innings rolling.<\/p>\n
But Smith’s frustrations at the bouncer barrage that quelled his shot-making became apparent when he requested a small piece of rubbish be removed from the expansive sightscreen at the Randwick End, prompting a five-minute delay as the item \u2013 an errant piece of electrical tape \u2013 was retrieved.<\/p>\n
Pakistan then switched strategies by placing catching fielders in front of the wicket on the off-side with the clear intention of luring Smith on the drive, and it took just one delivery for the ploy to prove successful as the former captain bunted a head-high catch to short cover.<\/p>\n
Since scoring his most recent Test century at Lord’s last July, Smith has reached 20 in all but two of his 12 subsequent Test innings but boasts a best of 71 and averages 36 \u2013 comparatively lean by his exacting standards \u2013 in that time.<\/p>\n
He could scarcely believe he had fallen for such an obvious trap and stood staring at the pitch for around five seconds, seemingly in the search for a reason for his lapse, before trudging off with rueful shakes of the head.<\/p>\n
Labuschagne responded similarly when he was beaten by Salman, not deployed until more than 90 minutes into the day despite clearly being a more threatening spin option than Sajid, with the batter seemingly mystified as to how he didn’t lay bat on ball.<\/p>\n
His studied examination of replays on the SCG’s big screens as he also dragged himself resignedly from the middle revealed the ball had spun sharply from the rough outside the right-hander’s off stump and speared between bat and pad to tilt back leg stump.<\/p>\n
It was a sure sign that batting will only become more challenging across the final days of this wildly fluctuating Test.<\/p>\n
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