Some outstanding bowling in the last hour of the day 3 by the Australia pace as both Pat Cummins and Mitchell Starc destroyed the hopes of to build the lead.
Pakistan lower order were not able to take the pace of the australian bowlers as they lost their last seven wickets for just 20 runs and moreover they lost the last five for just four runs and this put the Australian back in the driving seat to have the lead for the final 2 days of the test match in Lahore.
Australia are having a lead of 134 runs and they will take the field with 10 wickets in hand to build a good lead and put Pakistan into bat and try to win the match, which they are in good position to do so.
Mitchell Starc said “To keep in control of the scoreboard throughout the innings, and once we had a sniff to really stay on it and finish the day like we did today, that’s I guess the blueprint,” as he took 4-14 off 5.4 overs in a reverse swing masterclass late on the day three.
He further said “There’s been a clear approach from this group, obviously through our time in Melbourne before we came over and whilst we’ve been here, to stay pretty calm and to trust our processes. There was one comment made early doors, before we played in Rawalpindi, that things might not go the way we planned them out to be but it’s not a ‘scrap it and start with a blank canvas. We may have to tinker plans and change things really slightly to be where we want to be at. To be able to control the scoreboard fairly regularly … and then capitalise on little moments like we did tonight with getting a breakthrough and then putting the foot down, I think that’s a great sign for this group. Obviously we’ve got a couple (of subcontinent tours) to go after this tour so it’s a nice blueprint to start with, whether we tweak that for different conditions and different countries. We’ve got two days now, we’ve got an opportunity with how we’ve gone today and batting first to press through and hopefully translate that into a win this week, and then I guess a blueprint to take forward with us.”
Australia have a good chance just how they had the chance in Karachi and now the Pakistani players needs to stop them taking the advantage of building a huge lead, rather try to restrict them and when they come out to bat, they are able to play a positive cricket to make something out of this test match.
Everyone would like to see a result out of this test series as currently both previous test matches are drawn so would be good to have a result which for the moment we can expect as Australia are on top of this as we close of the day 3.
It will be interesting session on day 4 and looking forward to see which teams gets the results in their favor.
