Despite losing the Boxing Day Test against Australia at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, Pakistan team director Mohammad Hafeez was delighted with the performance and mentioned that they were better than the hosts. Notably, Pakistan were on top when Australia were 16/4 at one stage on Day 3 but Abdullah Shafique dropped a regulation catch of Mitchell Marsh at slip, as the all-rounder went on to score 96 runs, which helped the Pat Cummins-led side build momentum.
Chasing 317 runs, Pakistan were in the contest for the majority of the chase. Skipper Shan Masood once again hit a half-century, while Babar Azam supported him well. After they got back to the pavilion, Mohammad Rizwan and Agha Salman looked to take control of the situation but neither could capitalise.
Notably, Rizwan’s dismissal was a controversial call as the on-field umpire gave him not-out for a caught behind appeal. Unsure Pat Cummins decided to review it and a spike was spotted in the ultra edge. However, nothing concrete was noticed in the hotspot, which made the stumper-batter extremely unhappy when he was given out. Hafeez spoke about the same and mentioned that some decisions didn’t go their way and the results could have been different if it did.
Replying to Hafeez’s comments, Cummins mentioned that the visitors played well at MCG but in the end, he’s glad to get the win and it doesn’t matter to him what one thinks about the game.
“Ahhhh. Cool. They played well. I am glad we got the win. It doesn’t really matter, does it? It is the team who wins at the end,” the captain said as per news.com.au.
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Australia managed to win the game by 79 runs as Cummins picked up another five-for. They are currently leading 2-0 in the series and have moved to number three on the World Test Championship points table. On the other hand, the third Test will be played from January 3 in Sydney.