Live Scores PAK vs AUS Live Scores 2nd Test Day 5: Hello and welcome to our live coverage of Day 5 of the Pakistan vs Australia 2nd Test from Karachi. Captain Babar Azam has a big challenge in front of him to convert his century into a big score to register a historic win over Australia. Pakistan need 314 runs to win on the last day with 8 wickets in hand. While Australia will try to take quick wickets on the final day to strengthen their position in the game.
Azam’s first Test century in two years and Abdullah Shafiq’s 71 led Australia to lead Pakistan’s resistance after setting a mammoth target of 506 on Tuesday in the second Test.
Babar was unbeaten on 102 off 198 balls and opener Shafiq scored an unbeaten 71 off 226 balls in the first Test after his maiden Test century to take Pakistan to 192-2 at stumps.
Pakistan still need an impossible 314 runs to chase down a world record run chase on the final day or survive the remaining 90 overs to prevent Australia from taking a 1-0 lead in the three-match series.
Babar and Shafiq defied Australia’s reverse swing and Nathan Lyon’s spin on a poor pitch for more than four hours and shared a 171-run partnership in almost two sessions.
Babar, who scored his last Test century against Bangladesh in February 2020, scored his sixth Test century as he sweeps for two runs in the last session. He took just four hours off 180 balls with the help of 12 fours.
“We have good pace, but there are already bad patches on the wicket and it will be a big challenge for us tomorrow,” Shafiq said.
Babar and Shafiq joined in the second over after lunch when Azhar Ali’s hard work of 6 for over an hour was undone by a lbw from Cameron Green. The video showed a nail coming out of the glove before it hit Azhar’s body, but he decided not to review.
Pakistan could have been 38-3 but Steve Smith dropped a straight catch at slips when Shafiq was on 20. This was Smith’s third dropped catch in Tests. Shafiq also got a life for 33 when he was well short of his crease but Green missed the stumps at the non-striker’s end.
Babar cut Mitchell Swepson to the point boundary on the first boundary of Pakistan’s innings in the 26th over and then grew in confidence against Mitchell Starc’s pace, which was used in the short spell.
Shafiq also opened it by pulling Pat Cummins to the midwicket boundary and hitting Lyon for a six at long on. Both the batsmen, including the last overs with the new ball, took Pakistan home without any damage.
Pakistan’s highest successful target in Test matches is 382–3 in 2015, when they beat Sri Lanka by seven wickets at Pallekele.
Australia’s batting coach Michael Di Venuto said, ‘We are still in a position to win Test matches.
“Yesterday, we were getting reverse swing with the hard ball, but today (Babar and Shafiq) went through that and once the ball got soft they played really well.”
Earlier, Australia had extended their lead to 505 when Cummins declared the second innings at 97-2 when Marnus Labuschagne played 44 runs off Shaheen Afridi with a wrong pull shot back to his stumps.
Afridi and Hasan Ali did not allow Labuschagne to score early in the half-hour after Usman Khawaja, who scored an unbeaten 44 in the first innings, and Australia resumed at 81-1. The announcement came earlier than expected.
This was only the second time that Australia declared both innings in a Test in Asia; The second was against India in Chennai in 1986.
It took Australia almost two full days and a minimum of 172 overs to take a 1-0 lead in the series at the National Stadium in Pakistan’s Fort – where the home team has lost just two of 44 Test matches.
Those defeats were against South Africa in 2008 and England in 2000.
Australia trampled Pakistan for 148 in just 4 1/2 hours in the first innings of three days when they declared their first innings at 556–9, keeping Pakistan grounded in hot conditions for more than two days. Of.
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