Australia set with momentous challenge by Pakistan

“That’s credit to Azhar Ali, the way he played, to switch on and off like that and score 200 runs on the MCG is fantastic”.

Australia took honors on the rain curtailed opening day of the first cricket test against Pakistan after only two sessions were possible at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on Monday. Left-armer Steve O’Keefe would appear the logical candidate for a recall, with Jon Holland now sidelined by an ankle injury.

The players quickly went off for an early tea, but as heavy rain began to fall the prospects of further play in the day receded and play was eventually abandoned shortly before 5pm local time.

When Matt Renshaw at first slip snared Sarfraz Ahmed off Josh Hazlewood for 10, Pakistan were 268-6.

Rain aside, Azhar added to Australia’s torment as he summoned all his powers of concentration to shrug off the delays and survive 287 balls.

Australia resumed after lunch on 395 for four and Smith pulled a short ball from Sohail Khan for four on the first ball of the session to notch his 1,000th run for the year.

Azhar’s 12th Test century and his first at the MCG was a patient, determined knock.

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Though wickets were falling at the other end on a consistent basis, he was not ruffled with that and Ali continued scoring runs with decent ease.

Steven Smith’s century – his 17th in career and 4th in 2016 – ensured Australia take lead against Pakistan on the fourth day.

For all his supposed faults, Clarke was undoubtedly a skilled tactician and nearly always attempting to speed up matches.

“We’ve gone with that for a couple of Test matches and we’ve won a couple in a row”, Smith said.

The bowler, Bird, deflected the ball onto the stumps and the umpire called for a regulation video review, although it was obvious Azhar was in his crease. “It didn’t swing as much as we thought it would, it swung a fair bit in the warm-up so we thought it would swing during the game”.

Cricket Australia high-performance manager Pat Howard has previously said Australia should embrace the prospect of two teams being in action nearly simultaneously.

Darren Lehmann thinks struggling young batsman Nic Maddinson should get another chance at the MCG, but chief selector Trevor Hohns may beg to differ.

However, Mitchell Starc (1-125) provided the early breakthrough to the hosts by dismissing Amir caught behind to the keeper in the fifth over of the day.

“They’ll be sore, for sure, but it depends on how significant those little things are and the risks associated with it”, team sports medicine manager Alex Kountouris said.