Warner weathers late storm after Pakistan tail cuts loose

The Australian opener faced just one over on the first day of his last Test match, but what an over it was.

David Warner and Usman Khawaja leave the field after day one of the SCG Test between Australia and Pakistan. Picture: Getty Images

Forced to wear a borrowed baggy green after his own was stolen, David Warner spent a lot longer in the field than anticipated and faced just one over on the first day of his last Test match, but what an over it was.

With storm clouds forming around the ground and the clock closing in on 6pm, this was far from an ideal scenario.

There was some suspicion Nathan Lyon would be sent in as night watchman, indeed the spinner who in 2012 was applauded on to the ground by a Perth crowd that mistakenly thought he was the retiring Ricky Ponting, ran from the field and padded up.

But Warner emerged with his helmet and pads on, gave Usman Khawaja a hug on the boundary and headed to the middle, opting to take the first delivery from Sajid Khan rather than put off the inevitable at the other end.

He leant back and drove the first ball through extra cover for four, flicked the third for two runs and was almost bowled by the spinner on the fifth delivery.

But the gods smiled on the batter and the ball cleared the stumps by a centimetre. He lives to fight another day, and a fight on their hands the Australians have.

Pakistan wicketkeeper Mohammad Rizwan reacts as David Warner is almost bowled in the first over of Australia’s first innings of the third Test. Picture: AFP

When Pakistan lost two wickets in the first two overs of the morning, four in the first session, it seemed certain that Warner would be batting well before stumps. But the fact the Australian batters saw just one over is an indication things did not go as planned. Well on top of the game, Australia got a little cavalier with Pakistan’s lower order and paid a heavy price.

Sure, they had an unbeatable 2-0 series lead and yes, the seamers had summarily dispatched the danger men. But the visitors were far from done. The tail wagged so hard that in the end you would have to say it was the visitors’ day.

The opposition conspired to recover from a disastrous 5-96 to close the day with 313 runs on the board. A first innings that seemed destined to end in embarrassment for a side that’s been outclassed and had no luck, finished with Pakistan taking the points.

Having accounted for the specialist batters, the seamers pulled their lengths back, set the fields at a similar distance, and went head-hunting in the final two sessions. In the last session less than 2 per cent of deliveries were aimed at the stumps and a high percentage were aimed toward the boundary.

Captain Fantastic, Pat Cummins, picked up his third consecutive five-wicket haul (5-61). Mitchell Starc (2-75) and Josh Hazlewood (1-65) both picked up wickets with their second deliveries of the morning, but the trio let things drift as the day wore on.

Skipper Pat Cummins picked up another five-wicket haul on day one of the third and final Test against Pakistan at the SCG. Picture: Getty Images

Mohammad Rizwan played the perfect wicketkeeper’s innings. Batting with an abandon that defied the situation, he hit 12 boundaries on the way to 88, never letting Lyon settle and even unsettling Cummins with his sparkling stroke-play.

Rizwan and Agha Salman put on 94 from 101 deliveries for the sixth wicket, Salman following his half century in the second innings at the MCG with another here.

That partnership followed a solid 49 from Shan Masood (35) and Rizwan, but Pakistan weren’t done yet. Seamers Mir Hamza and Aamer Jamal put on 83 for the 10th wicket, giving themselves something to bowl at.

The crowd of 33,000 was just settling into its seats when Starc dismissed Abdullah Shafique (0). The first ball had swung, the ­Pakistan batsman assumed the second would too but it was ­pushed across him and Steve Smith pouched a nice catch at ­second slip. Come the next over and it was Saim Ayub’s (0) turn to fall victim to the Australian’s two-card trick. The feisty young batter had come in as replacement for Imam-ul-Haq, handed a Test debut after a first-class summer that saw him peel off three centuries for the Karachi Whites.

He played a nice forward defence to the first delivery from Hazlewood and maybe could have got a bit further forward to the second. But in truth, he didn’t do much wrong to a similar delivery that nibbled away and caught his outside edge and was gobbled up by Alex Carey in front of Warner at slip.

Cummins produced one of his rare, but beautiful, inswingers to cut off Babar Azam lbw when the former skipper had reached 26 and started to show something.