Steve Smith impresses with an amazing catch in slips to remove Azhar Ali in the Adelaide Test

Australia has tightened their grip on the day-night Test match against Pakistan at the Adelaide Oval in Adelaide, thanks to the efforts of David Warner, Marnus Labuschagne with the bat and Mitchell Starc with the ball. After declaring their first innings on 589/3, Australia managed to grab a 287-run lead by bowling out Pakistan for 302.

Pakistani innings was in tatters at the end of day two, with them losing 6 wickets for just 96 runs. However, Babar Azam with a wonderful 97 and Yasir Shah with his first-ever Test century, 113, helped Pakistan to a respectable total, but still couldn’t manage to avoid the follow-on. Mitchell Starc, who had picked four wickets on day two, managed 2 more to make it 6/66, while Pat Cummins picked 3/83. Tim Paine decided to enforce the follow-on and the visitors didn’t fare better in the second do as well.

Azhar Ali disappoints yet again as Steve Smith takes a blinder of a catch

Pakistan has been buried in the series are again staring at a loss by an innings. Imam-Ul-Haq, who was brought in to strengthen the batting fell for a duck in the second innings after scoring 3 in the first and that started a collapse, which saw the skipper also failing spectacularly.

Azhar Ali made scored of 39 and 5 in the first Test, while he got out for just 9 in the first innings. The onus was on him to take charge and rebuild the innings with the help of opener Shan Masood and Babar Azam. However, the right-hander from Lahore looked jittery and out of touch in this innings as well and became the victim of Mitchell Starc for the score of 9.

However, the beauty of his dismissal was Steve Smith’s catch, as the ball was travelling to his right at a good speed when Smith dived and got both hands to it. The catch was completed safely and Pakistan stared at the barrel at 11/2 in the second innings. Cricket Australia shared the video of Smith’s brilliant catch on Twitter.

Smith takes a BEAUTY and Pakistan are two down! #AUSvPAK | https://t.co/0QSefkJERk pic.twitter.com/8Hdev67irB

— cricket.com.au (@cricketcomau) December 1, 2019

Pakistan also lost the hero of first innings, Babar Azam, this time for 8 runs, caught behind by Paine off Josh Hazlewood and the team faltered to 20/3 inside the first 10 overs. At the time of writing this article, Pakistan was 39/3, trailing by 248 runs with 7 wickets in hand and Masood (14*) and Shafiq (8*) at the crease.