Twitter Reactions: Bilal Asif's six-wicket haul on debut skittles Australia for 202

Abbas also bowled really well to scalp four wickets.

By Aditya Gajanan Kukalyekar verified

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2 Min Read

Bilal Asif
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Bilal Asif. (Photo by Ryan Pierse/Getty Images)

Pakistan looked battered and bruised after the first session of the third day’s play. The duo of Aaron Finch and Usman Khawaja put forth an exceptional resilience and frustrated the hosts. Their partnership of 142 runs for the first wicket gave the visitors a hope to restore parity in the first innings. But the middle-order collapse left them too much behind the game and ended the day with literally no hopes of making a comeback in the game.

Bilal Asif, the debutant, wrecked havoc in the Aussie camp by picking a six-wicket haul and the score which read 142/0, soon became 202/10. Pakistan came out with a different intent in the second session. They built the pressure by bowling back to back maidens and stalled the scoring rate amazingly. The persistent lengths brought about the fall of the first wicket as Finch drove the ball in the air only for Asad Shafiq to take a smart low catch standing at the short mid-on position.

The wicket opened up the floodgates and Bilal’s variations proved to be too good for the rookie-middle-order. Marsh brothers, Shaun and Mitchell, both promised a lot, but couldn’t cross the double-figure mark. The other two debutants, Travis Head and Marnus Labuschagne, failed to get off the mark and were undone by the opponent’s debut bowler.

Australia‘s lower order always puts up a fight but Mohammad Abbas took care of that problem. He nipped out the wickets of Peter Siddle and Mitchell Starc and left them reeling. Fittingly, Bilal Asif scalped his sixth scalp to end the innings on 202 runs as Pakistan led by a massive 280 runs.

All the hard work by the openers Finch (62) and Khawaja (85) was undone in a matter of a few hours. Their stunning opening stand had worried Pakistan and a little more resistance from the middle-order would’ve made the difference.

Pakistan lose three in the second innings

The batting is getting increasingly difficult on the degrading pitch as even the hosts lost three wickets before the close of play in the second innings. Mohammad Hafeez couldn’t replicate his first innings heroics and was sent back by Jon Holland for 17. The night-watchman Bilal Asif couldn’t stay for a long time as Nathan Lyon got him for a duck while Azhar Ali’s poor Test match with the bat continued. He became the final scalp of the day as Pakistan ended the day on 45/3 with a lead of 325 runs.

They would like to add a few more runs before declaring on the fourth day while the visitors could only hope for some miracle now to save or win this Test match.

Here’s how Twitter reacted during the course of play:

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