Pakistan were 90/1 after the end of Day two of the third test match in Lahore. Abdullah Shafique and Azhar Ali started the day three and added 100 more runs together in their overnight partnership of 70 runs.
Shafique faced 228 balls for his score of 81 with 11 boundaries. Azhar ali made 78 in 208 balls with 7 fours and one maximum. Mitchel Starc stuck twice with the wickets of Fawad Alam and Mohammad Rizwan. He got Fawad’s wicket with a cracking delivery. He hit the ball on a good length, brought him forward and the ball nipped back through the gap and hit the stumps. Starc got Rizwan with a gem of reverse swinging ball.
Captain Babar Azam made a fluent 67 with 6 boundaries and a six and tried to play with the lower order batsmen but Starc striked agan when Babar was beaten playing around his pad and was declared LBW. To be honest, lower order batting was disappointing from Pakistan where last 3 out of 4 batsman could not open their account. Pakistan got bundled out on 268.
It was a superb display of pace bowling from Australia fast-bowling duo Pat Cummins and Mitchell Starc. Pat Cummins got his 7th 5 wickets haul with the wicket of Hasan Ali. Mitchel Starc finished with four wickets and Nathan Lyon took one wickets. At the end of day 3 of the third test match Pakistan are trailing by 134 runs.
Usman Khawaja and David Warner are on the scores of 7 and 4 respectively at the stumps. With two more days to go in the test match, Pakistan will be hoping for quick breakthroughs tomorrow to get Australia out cheaply in the second innings so that they chase a target they are comfortable with while Australia will be hoping to build on the first innings lead on day four.