AUS vs PAK | Twitter in awe as Hazlewood hammers away at Babar's weakness to do him over with another jaffa

SportsCafe Desk

BySportsCafe Desk, SportsCafe Editor

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When two of the best in the world clash on the elite stage, often all that separates triumph from defeat is one tiny chink in the armor. A well-set Babar Azam looked primed to take Pakistan home on Friday but was undone by a Josh Hazlewood peach, eerily similar to his first innings dismissal.

Australia inched closer to sealing the series on Day 4 of the Boxing Day Test at Melbourne Cricket Ground with some spirited bowling to keep Pakistan's run chase under leash. The Men in Green were still over 150 runs away from the target of 318 with just three specialist batters remaining to pull off the side's first Test win Down Under since 1995. However, at one stage the visitors did seem to be ahead of the game with Babar Azam and Saud Shakeel's partnership growing formidably and having passed the thirty-run mark until the former succumbed to a Josh Hazlewood jaffa in the final session of play.

The former Pakistan skipper, having failed to get going in the series so far, appeared to have rediscovered his touch as he largely looked comfortable against the threatening Australian attack and cruised past 40. The one seamer that had presented him with the most problems on the day had been Hazlewood, extracting multiple outside edges and injecting uncertainty in the batter's mind by constantly bowling in the channel. He finally broke through in the 41st over when Babar was batting on 41 with a good length delivery that landed on off after a hint of swing in the air before nipping back sharply off the deck to pierce the gap between bat and pad and sound the death rattle. 

Interestingly, Babar had fallen victim to a similar delivery from Cummins that the Aussie skipper later described as a 'dream ball' and albeit they seemed unplayable at first, both instances exploited the 29-year-old's tendency to play with his bat away from the body and consequently leave a gap to aim. Twitterati was quick to highlight the same.

Game changing wicket

Not great

Always look at the positives

Cleaned him up

Bhuvi is a rockstar!

Good one

It was important

It was a bad year

Harsh critque

Definitely

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