Twitter Reactions: Australia register an innings victory despite stunning resistance from Babar Azam and Mohammad Rizwan

Babar Azam scored his first away century in Tests.

By Aditya Gajanan Kukalyekar verified

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Josh Hazlewood
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Josh Hazlewood. (Photo Source: Twitter)

Australia have beaten Pakistan by an innings and five runs at The Gabba in Brisbane to go 1-0 up in the two-match Test series. The result wasn’t in question after the visitors had lost three wickets in the second innings late on Day three. But Babar Azam and Mohammad Rizwan batted brilliantly to delay the inevitable. Once their partnership was broken, the home side didn’t take much time to wrap things up.

The day began with Pakistan tottering at 64/3 as Babar and Shan Masood aimed to keep the Australian bowlers at bay. And they were successful to some extent as well. The latter, like the first innings, once again showed amazing composure. But Masood once again failed to make the start count. He was snaffled by Pat Cummins when on 42 and Iftikhar Ahmed bagged a duck leaving his team in a hole.

At 94/5, it looked as if Australia will win the match before lunch. But that wasn’t the case. Babar Azam and Mohammad Rizwan joined hands and played admirably well.

Babar Azam finally lives up to the expectations

There was always a lot of focus on Babar Azam and after the first innings failure, he was determined to make amends. He also got an able ally in Rizwan who has completely justified his selection with his performance in this game. The duo added 132 runs for the sixth wicket stand even as Babar got to the three-figure mark finally in an away Test for his country.

However, he couldn’t score a big hundred and got out to Nathan Lyon. But this wasn’t the end of Pakistan’s fight yet. Yasir Shah once again proved the thorn in the flesh for the visitors. He stitched a frustrating partnership of 79 runs with Rizwan. The latter played some amazing counterattacking cricket and was approaching his maiden Test ton.

Unfortunately, he played a wrong shot to the Cummins bouncer and was left stranded on 95. Though many felt for Rizwan, he hasn’t done any harm to his credentials. Australia didn’t take much time then to register a clinical win as  the tail was quickly cleaned up with the new ball. Pakistan were bundled out for 335 runs and fell only five runs short of their aim to make the opposition bat again.

For Australia, Josh Hazlewood was the most successful bowler with four wickets to his name while Mitchell Starc returned with the figures of 3/73.

Here’s how Twitter reacted:

 

 

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