Steve Smith said he was annoyed at missing out on a century on Monday as Australia’s first Test in Pakistan was almost a quarter-century, heading for a draw in Rawalpindi.
Mitchell Starc was on 12 and captain Pat Cummins scored four as Australia reached 449-7, in response to which Pakistan declared a total of 476-4.
But Smith himself was annoyed at being dismissed for the first 78.
“I got a little greedy with the ground they had built. I had worked hard and found myself in a good position to move on and score big.”
Australia is on its first tour of Pakistan since 1998, which had earlier refused to travel over security fears.
Despite no rain forecast for Tuesday, the opening match of the three-Test series looks bleak, except for the collapse of Pakistan’s batting in the second innings at one wicket, which still looked full of runs. Is.
Smith believed there would have been a small chance of a result on the final day if not for hours of games that were lost due to weather.
“Maybe if we were five runs down, we could have pushed a little harder in the morning and prepared something for the fourth innings,” he said.
But the Rawalpindi Cricket Stadium pitch has scored 925 runs for just 13 wickets, and is unlikely to give the spin required for the result.
Nevertheless, Pakistan grabbed five wickets on Monday, including top-order Test batsmen Marnus Labuschagne (90) and Smith, with Nauman scoring 4-107 in 37 precise overs.
Nauman broke the fifth-wicket 81-run stand between Smith and Cameron Green (48) as the young all-rounder was caught with a wrong sweep at leg slip by Iftikhar Ahmed.
Australia were looking for quick runs to advance in the first innings, but were dealt a further blow as Nauman dismissed Smith with a mishit sweep, which grabbed the gloves and fell into the safe hands of wicketkeeper Mohammad Rizwan.
Smith hit eight fours while batting two minutes less than five hours.
Alex Carey scored 19 before he was bowled by Naseem Shah in dim light.
Earlier, overnight rain had submerged the stadium’s outfield and the umpires allowed play to resume only after lunch.
Australia, 271-2 overnight, reached 288-2 when Pakistan took the second new ball after 80 overs – and were immediately rewarded.
Left-arm pacer Shaheen Shah Afridi took an edge off Labuschagne’s delivery, which was dived into the slips by Abdullah Shafiq to his right.
Labuschagne lasted 190 minutes, during which he hit 12 fours.
Travis Head, after being man-of-the-series in Australia’s 4-0 Ashes win in January, hit two boundaries before driving off spinner Nauman and was caught by Rizwan.
Shaheen (1-80), Naseem (1-89) and Sajid (1-122) were other successful Pakistan bowlers.
The second Test of the series will be held in Karachi from March 12-16 and the third in Lahore from March 21-25.
Get all the latest updates cricket news, cricket pictures, cricket videos, IPL Auction 2022 And cricket score Here