Scoreboard

Pakistan 2nd innings:

Fakhar Zaman c and b Lyon Mohammad Hafeez c Head b Starc Azhar Ali run out

Haris Sohail st Paine b Lyon

Asad Shafiq c sub (Agar) b Labuschagne Babar Azam lbw b M. Marsh Sarfraz Ahmad lbw b Labuschagne Bilal Asif c Head b Lyon

Yasir Shah lbw b Lyon Mohammad Abbas not out

Mir Hamza not out

(lb 2, nb 2)

(for nine wkts dec; 120 overs)

Extras: Total:

leg in the dressing room but that moment it was a shock,” revealed Azhar.

If Azhar’s run out was the funniest ever, then Babar Azam’s dismissal on 99 was painful.

The 24-year-old, who made his debut in 2016 against West Indies, was in line for his maiden century after having done all the hard work in his 114-ball vigil. Azam was also involved in a 133-run partnership for the sixth wicket with skipper Sarfraz Ahmad. Sadly he fell short of the milestone after falling leg before wicket to Mitchell Marsh.

“Very disappointed. It is painful to miss out on the ton,” said Azam adding it wasn’t easy to play on the pitch which had plenty of turn.

“Needed to take a bit of time and then started to play the game my way. The partnership with Saifi (Sarfraz) was important.

Missed chance

“Missed it today. But, hopefully, in the next series I want to change that. I haven’t changed anything in my batting, but I’m just a bit more positive.”

Skipper Sarfraz, who scored a brilliant 94 under pressure in the first innings, also went to post another fine 81 and was the ninth wicket to fall with the team total on 400. The declaration came an over later and Australians had a mammoth target of 537 runs to chase.

Australia pacer Peter Siddle was still optimistic saying: “It’s just about being patient. We know when we have such collapses that we are not in our best. We need to do that again. It was disappointing to lose a wicket but the other two have done well so far. “One good thing for us is seeing the wicket how well it played today. The difference from yesterday wasn’t much. If we can turn out tomorrow and if it plays pretty similar we got every chance to do something special.”

All my sons are going to speak about it for a long time. Whenever I would say something about cricket they will surely come back to this incident.” Azhar Ali speaking about his comical run-out