Australia has a tradition of playing Test matches for Boxing Day and New Year’s Eve. The holiday season helps to kick start the cricket season for the team down-under. Australia is playing Pakistan this time around. Pakistan lost to Aus in the first Test at Perth. They want to make an impression in Boxing Day Test at MCG, Melbourne.
Pakistan elected to field first after winning the toss on Day one. Australia Openers David Warner(38) and Usman Khawaja(42) have put on 90 runs partnership for the first wicket. Marnus Labuschagne kept going on one end with a gritty 63 off 155 balls against good Pak bowling. Steven Smith(26), Travis Head(7) and Mitchell Marsh(41) pushed the score beyond 300. Australia scored 318 in 96.5 overs and Pakistan gave away 52 runs in extras.
Aamer Jamal(3/64), Mir Hamza(2/51), Hasan Ali(2/61), Shaheen Shah Afridi(2/85) and Agha Salman(1/22) took wickets. But they gave away too many extras in the search of wickets. Had they controlled the extras, Aus score could have not more than 260-270. Pakistan lost Imam-ul-Haq(10) early, in their first innings reply.
Another opener Abdullah Shafique(62) and Captain Shan Masood(54) have put on 90 runs partnership for the second wicket. When Pakistan looked set to give a tough fight or even dominate, Australia found great inspiration from Pat Cummins. He sent Shafique and Babar Azam, very quickly. Further, Nathan Lyon also struck by sending Masood back.
Mohammad Rizwan started controlling the innings, by taking the responsibility. He is not out after scoring 29 runs from 34 balls. Pat Cummins(3/37) and Nathan Lyon(2/48) helped Australia to keep their dominance on Pakistan. Now, Rizwan is key for Pakistan as they are looking 124 runs behind Aussie score at 194/6 from 55 overs.