Saturday 21 / December / 2024
Lahore: Nathan Lyon's five-wicket haul and skipper Pat Cummins' three-wicket haul helped Australia in bundling out Pakistan at 235 and claiming a victory by 155 runs on Day 5 of the third Test here in Lahore on Friday.
Resuming Day 5 at 73/0, Pakistan faced an early blow as opener Abdullah Shafique was caught by Alex Carey on Cameron Green's delivery, with just 77 runs on the board.
Azhar Ali joined Imam-ul-Haq to give a steady innings to the hosts but couldn't survive long as he was dismissed by Lyon for only 17 runs. Imam-ul-Haq was then joined by skipper Babar Azam and the duo played a brief stint which was broken by Lyon, who claimed Imam's wicket for 70 runs and Pakistan's total at 142/3. Cummins then attacked the hosts with his bowling and sent back Fawad Alam and Mohammad Rizwan, leaving the total at 167/5.
Babar Azam then scored his half-century and was looking like the last ray of hope for Pakistan. But soon that hope also ended as he also fell prey to Lyon's fiery spell and was caught by Steve Smith, after scoring 55 runs. Following his dismissal, Sajid Khan was also sent back to the dugout by Mitchell Starc, with Pakistan's total at 213/7.
Hasan Ali and Nauman Ali came to the crease but couldn't do much as the former got bowled out Lyon for just 13 runs. Later, Shaheen Afridi also faced the wrath of Lyon's spin and was caught by Mitchell Swepson for 5 runs. Cummins then bowled out Naseem Shah and ended Pakistan's batting run at 235 and clinched the victory by 155 runs.
With this victory, Australia have won the three-match Test series 1-0. The first two matches ended in a draw. Both the team will be facing each other in a three-match ODI series from March 29.
Brief score: Australia 391 and 227/3 dec (Usman Khawaja 104*, David Warner 51; Naseem Shah 1/23) vs Pakistan 268 and 235 (Imam-ul-Haq 70, Babar Azam 55; Nathan Lyon 5/83)
