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On Friday, December 29, Australia defeated Pakistan by 79 runs on day four of the second Test match at the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG) to take an unassailable 2-0 lead in the series. Pat Cummins, the captain of Australia, picked up 10 wickets in the Test to get adjudicated as the player of the match.
In the fourth innings, Pakistan needed 317 runs to register their first Test win on Australian soil in nearly 30 years. Although the opening pair of Abdullah Shafique and Imam-ul-Haq lost their wickets cheaply, the middle order of Pakistan showed tremendous fight during the run chase.
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The captain Shan Masood and Agha Salman registered fifties, apart from the decent contributions from rest of the middle order batters in Pakistan team. But they lost their last five wickets in the run chase for just 18 runs after Pat Cummins removed Mohammad Rizwan caught behind through to Alex Carey for 35 off 62.
Earlier, the Australians had set up a decent total of 318 in their first innings after getting put into bat first, which included Marnus Labuschagne’s top score of a fifty. In response, Pakistan got 264 runs with Abdullah Shafique and Shan Masood notching up fifties, while Pat Cummins picking up his first of two five-wicket hauls in the Test match.
During their second innings, Australia were in trouble at 16-4 with a lead of just 70 runs, but then Steve Smith and Mitchell Marsh shared a massive partnership of 153 runs to dig them out of a hole. Alex Carey also scored a fifty later in the same innings to help propel the hosts to 262 runs, setting up a lead of 316 for Pakistan to overhaul.
