Pat’s perfect 10 enough to overcome gallant Pakistan

A controversial landmark wicket to skipper Pat Cummins shifted a tight Test in Australia’s favour.

Pat Cummins takes a catch to dismiss Pakistan batsman Aamer Jamal, one of his 10 wickets for the match Picture: AFP

Pat Cummins became the first captain to take 10 wickets at the MCG to drag his side over the line and secure a controversial victory in the second Test against Pakistan and with it retain the Benaud-Qadir Trophy.

With Pakistan seven down at 6pm a thrilling game seemed set to spill into Saturday, but Cummins sensed the moment was at hand and asked umpires for the extra half-hour.

The lure of a sleep in and a round of golf inspired one last effort from the bowlers who had to work hard to fight off the challenge from Pakistan’s lower order.

Cummins took five wickets and Mitchell Starc two with his final two deliveries to give the Australians victory by 79 runs in a game that had could have gone either way earlier in the afternoon. The home side lead the series 2-0 with one game to play in Sydney starting on Wednesday.

Cummins’ 5-48 gets him on the MCG honour board again and takes his career tally to 252. Without his efforts Pakistan may well have won this m ch. How the visitors must regret the -odd extras in the first innings and critical dropped catches.

Pat Cummins celebrates with his teammates. Picture: Getty Images

The Australian captain’s opposite number, Shan Masood (60), was his 249th victim and the one that took him past former captain Richie Benaud on the all-time tally.

What a shame Benaud wasn’t on hand to give Cummins the acknowledgment from the commentary box as he had when Dennis Lillee achieved the same.

Lillee’s 249th victim was Sunil Gavaskar at the same ground in 1981 and triggered controversy when the enraged Indian captain attempted to drag his partner Chetan Chauhan from the field.

The lbw decision was bad enough by the local umpire, but Gavaskar was further enraged by the colourful send off he received and lost control.

There’s a nice symmetry to Cummins and Benaud changing positions on the all-time list given they both captained their sides.

There aren’t a lot of others on the Australian all-time wicket takers list that have a (c) next to their name.

The latest controversy arrived with Cummins’ 250th wicket with Mohammed Rizwan (35) arly upset at being given out caught behind. The visiting keeper insisted that he should not be given out caught behind, indicating a visible welt half way up his forearm where he said the ball had struck.

Hot Spot, however, suggested, that the ball had caught the wrist band of his gloves. The batter protested vigorously, but unlike Gavaskar made his way off alone.

Rizwan and Salman’s 47-run sixth-wicket partnership had moved them to within 100 runs of victory, but the collapse was at hand and the next five wickets fell fast.

Pakistan team director Mohammad Hafeez said the impact of DRS needed to be reviewed.

“This technology is putting a curse on the beautiful game of cricket and we need to address it,” he said.

Pakistan did themselves proud in this Test match and the late partnerships ha Australia worried at 5-219, but the last five wickets fell for just 18 runs.

Almighty India lost to South Africa by an innings at Centurion, their battery of excellent young and old batters baffled by a wicket with more than a little life. A similar South African outfit lost by an innings and 182 runs at the MCG last summer.

It has long been an article of truth in the game that it is hard to win away and in recent years it has become even harder. Conditions seem to get less accommodating every tour and long gone is the practice of playing multiple lead-up matches to acclimatise. That’s a luxury of another age.

Pakistan’s efforts at the MCG need to consider the difficulty of winning away, particularly in the case of a side like this one which has so little international experience.

Pakistan last won a Test match in Melbourne in 1981, India is the only visiting side to record a victory there since 2010.

They were a chance on days three and four of this Test match. That they let it slip on the previous day was a result of poor fielding, that they got themselves back in the game and gave themselves an opportunity to humble the home side is worthy of more focus than why they didn’t.

This Australian bowling attack should not be taken for granted.

Nathan Lyon, Mitchell Starc, Cummins and Josh Hazlewood are approaching 1500 Test wickets between them. There’s no reprieve from this mob, the two right arm seamers are tall and their bounce off a good length a nightmare, Starc’s arm is worth $4.4m to an Indian IPL outfit, Lyon is the most successful off spinner of his era.

Hazlewood has only a fistful fewer wickets than Cummins and manages somehow to fly under the radar, but his dismissal of Pakistan star Babar Azam on the fourth day was a peach and almost identical to the delivery Cummins bowled to dismiss the former Pakistan captain on the second day.

There is a patch outside the right hander’s off-stump when the bowler is coming from the members’ end that has proved particularly perilous and both bowlers got one through Babar’s defence.

Twice as many wickets have fallen at that particular end of the pitch.

There was another symmetrical moment earlier in the 15th over of the game when Cummins trapped Imam-ul-Haq on the pads with is his first and third deliveries. Both were identical and the only difference between the first instance and the second was the umpire.

The first appeal for lbw was turned down by Michael Gough but ball tracker showed it was clipping. When Cummins bowled an identical delivery two wickets later and appealed Gough had learned his lesson and gave the batter out.

There had been another DRS controversy involving Cummins in the morning with the umpire giving the skipper out caught behind, even though there was nothing on Hot Spot and the spike appeared to occur after the ball had passed the bat.