'Courageous fight by Babar Azam and Mohammad Rizwan' - Shoaib Akhtar

Australia defeated Pakistan by a margin of an innings and five runs in the 1st Test at The Gabba. It was a one-sided affair in the longer format but two players from Men in Green that impressed were Mohammad Rizwan and Babar Azam. And, Shoaib Akhtar took no moment to appreciate their performance but also accepted the fact that the team should have given some more effort to avoid the defeat by an innings.

The young batter Babar Azam got off to a poor start to his game and in the first inning, he was caught by Joe Burns against Josh Hazelwood and was dismissed after scoring just one run. But, when he came out to bat in the second innings, he batted really well and smashed his 2nd ton in Tests. However, he could only add four runs after his century before Nathan Lyon brought his super knock to a halt.

On the other hand, Mohammed Rizwan, the Pakistan wicketkeeper, who had replaced Sarfaraz Ahmed in the side, played a determined knock of 95 runs in his quest to avoid his team from facing a defeat by an innings. However, his astonishing effort went in vain. He also contributed well in the 1st innings by scoring 37 runs but he was given out by the third umpire over a no-ball that was bowled by Patt Cummins. Later on, the former cricketing greats like Shane Warne and Mickey Arthur came out in order to criticise the decision given by the third umpire.

Shoaib Akhtar feels that Pakistan could have avoided an innings defeat 

After the match came to its conclusion, the former Pakistan speedster Shoaib Akhtar took to his Twitter Handle in order to hail the performances given by Rizwan and Babar, and wrote, “Courageous fight by Babar Azam & Rizwan but it was a really uphill task. Australia had put up a huge total. Pakistan should have put a little more effort to avoid an innings defeat.”

Here is the tweet

It was David Warner and Marnus Labuschagne centuries that helped Australia to take a mammoth lead over the visitors of 340 runs. From that point, Pakistan lost its grip over the match and ended up losing the 1st Test.

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