Pakistan ended the day 2 of the third Test against Australia at the SCG in Sydney at 126/2 with two of their batting mainstays, Azhar Ali and Younis Khan unbeaten on 58 and 64 respectively. They still trail the hosts by 412 runs.
After declaring their innings at 538-8, Australia struck early in Pakistan’s first innings as Josh Hazlewood dismissed opener Sharjeel Khan and Babar Azam just before tea with just 16 runs on the board. But the veterans, Ali and Younis batted cautiously and made sure that there were no hiccups in the third session of the day.
Both the batsmen reached their fifties in the last few overs of the day and looked solid when the umpires decided to call it a day. They will have their task cut out when they come out to bat tomorrow and will look to get the deficit below 200 to take out the possibility of an innings defeat.
Resuming the day 2 from 365-3, Australian overnight batsmen, Matt Renshaw and Pater Handscomb threatened to take the game away from the visitors as they scored some quick runs in the first session. In doing so, Renshaw was castled by Imran Khan for 184.
Handscomb reached his fifty and looked good to get his second Test ton in just his fourth Test. He, along with debutant Hilton Cartwright put on 91 for the fifth wicket before the latter was dismissed by Imran for 37.
Handscomb reached his century and got out in a bizarre manner to Wahab Riaz for 110 when his bat grazed the leg stump. Matthew Wade and Mitchell Starc scored some quick runs before skipper Steve Smith declared the innings at 538-8. Wahab was the pick of the Pakistani bowlers with figures of 3-89.
Also read: David Warner and Matt Renshaw punish Pakistan on day 1 of the third Test
Here are some of the important numbers from the day’s play.
382- Number of runs scored by Azhar Ali in this series, the most by any overseas opener in Australia in a three-Test series. Ali overtook Sunil Gavaskar’s record tally of 352 runs in the 1985-86 tour.
2- Peter Handscomb scored his second Test hundred today.
2- Peter Handscomb became the second Australian after Herbie Collins to make at least one 50+ score in each of his first 4 Tests.
5- Younis Khan became the fifth Pakistani batsman to score 1000 Test runs against Australia.
8- Number of runs needed by Azhar Ali to overtake Moshin Khan to have the most runs by a Pakistani batsman in a Test series down under.
24- Peter Handscomb became the 21st Australian to get dismissed through hit-wicket in Tests. This is also the 24th instance by an Australian to get dismissed in this manner.
70- Hilton Cartwright became the 70th player to score a boundary off his first ball in Tests.
184- This is Matt Renshaw’s highest score in first-class cricket.
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