CRICKET SECOND TEST:PAKISTAN WERE on course to end their 15-year wait for a Test victory over Australia after just one day of the second Test at Headingley after they bowled out Ricky Ponting's side for just 88.
Pakistan’s swing bowlers revelled in the early overcast conditions in Leeds after Ponting won the toss and chose to bat, to dismiss Australia for their second-lowest total against their sub-continental rivals.
The Pakistani batsmen then belied Australia’s earlier struggles as they reached stumps on 148 for three, to give them a 60-run lead and an already vice-like grip on the game.
Pakistan have lost their past 13 Test matches against Australia with their most recent success coming in Sydney back in 1995.
Their hopes of ending that losing sequence seemed remote this week after they were beaten by 150 runs in the first Test at Lord’s, following which Shahid Afridi announced his shock retirement from the five-day game.
But new captain Salman Butt, who was hastily promoted to captain his country for the first time in his 29-Test career over the weekend, could not have asked for a better start to his captaincy.
A rare success against Australia was set up by his bowlers with 18-year-old left-armer Mohammad Aamer and Mohammad Asif claiming three wickets apiece, while Umar Gul chipped in with two as Australia’s batsmen completely failed to deal with their threat.
Australia lost six wickets before lunch — four of them lbw — with Aamer and Asif sharing the wickets of openers Simon Katich and Shane Watson when they pinned both in front with swinging deliveries with the score on 20.
That would prove to be the highest partnership of the innings as Australia crumbled.
An uncomfortable-looking Michael Clarke made just three before he played down the wrong line once too often and was bowled by Gul between bat and pad.
Asif claimed the key wicket of Ponting, who had averaged over a hundred in his three previous Tests at Headingley, with a vicious inswinger that had the Australia skipper overbalancing on the front foot and plumb in front.
Gul then claimed the fourth lbw decision of the morning when Mike Hussey was harshly given out by umpire Rudi Koertzen, standing in his last Test, before Marcus North was caught behind off the medium pace of Umar Amin just before lunch to leave Australia reeling at 73 for six at the interval.
The collapse continued immediately after the lunch break when Aamer took the wickets of Steven Smith and Mitchell Johnson with the first two balls of the session.
Aamer narrowly missed out on becoming the fourth Pakistani to claim a Test hat-trick when Ben Hilfenhaus fended inside the next ball, but the end was nigh.
Hilfenhaus was needlessly run out soon after going for a third run before Tim Paine was caught behind off Asif trying to hit out.
Australia were in need of quick wickets, but their bowling proved far less threatening than their Pakistan counterparts as they failed to find the same degree of swing.
It made for easy work for Butt and his opening partner Imran Farhat as they reached tea untroubled at 64 without loss.
Butt had passed 50 in each innings at Lord’s and looked on course to repeat the feat after Hilfenhaus dropped a return chance when he was on 42.
The skipper could add just three more, however, before Hilfenhaus finally got his man with a ball that swung into middle stump.
Pakistan went past Australia’s first-inning total with nine wickets in hand when new man Azhar Ali edged a ball through to the third-man boundary.
Azhar had put on 53 with Farhat before they fell in quick succession to Watson, who benefited from the clouds rolling in again late in the day.
GuardianService
