Australia seal historic Test series victory in Pakistan

Nathan Lyon might have won the plaudits by snaring a five-wicket haul in Australia's final-session win, but it was Steve Smith's stunning grab at slip that added the exclamation point to a long-awaited day-five bowling effort and set them on the road to a draining but deserved triumph.

Having endured four Tests over the past 14 months where they've been unable to prise 10 wickets out of their rivals' fourth innings, Australia rolled through Pakistan's lower order after tea today to celebrate a 115-run win with an hour and 29 overs to spare at Gadaffi Stadium.

In doing so, they became the first holders of the newly minted Benaud-Qadir Trophy but more significantly, successfully pioneered a fresh blueprint for playing on Asian pitches which they will look to take into upcoming campaigns in Sri Lanka (next July) and India (next year).

Given his calm leadership and timely ability to conjure wickets when most needed, it was fitting that skipper Pat Cummins sealed the win by scattering last man Naseem Shah's stumps just before 4.30pm local time.

But despite the size of the final margin that delivered a 1-0 series scoreline, today did not finish without its share of anxious moments – most notably another horror round of DRS reviews – before Smith's snare put the result within reach.

Following stumps on day four, after Smith had missed three tough chances at slip that fizzed past his left foot off the spinners, player of the series Usman Khawaja reaffirmed Australia's faith in the former skipper's catching ability.

And the series' leading run-scorer predicted that if anyone would claim a "speccy" (spectacular) grab on day five, it would be Smith.

In truth, Smith could claim two speccies, although the one to remove rival skipper Babar Azam is the only entry in the scorebook and was doubtless the most valuable given the significance of the timing as Pakistan mounted one last act of defiance.

Australia entered the final phase of what they had billed throughout their tour as a '15-day Test' knowing the most formidable obstacle to victory was Babar, who had batted his team to a remarkable draw in Karachi last week.

For all the meticulous planning and mantra of patience before and during this battle of attrition, the message heading into the last gasp in Lahore was surely to not allow Babar any let-off.

Yet by the time they entered the 45th of a possible 45 sessions, Australia had effectively let three chances to dismiss their rivals' emblematic leader slip through their fingers.

Although one of those was not a dropped catch, but rather a missed opportunity to confirm they had taken one when Babar pushed forward to Lyon and the ball looped over the head of keeper Alex Carey only for Smith to hurl himself from slip and clutch it in his left claw.

The former skipper, whose catching prowess had been under heavy scrutiny after his earlier blemishes, was certain the ball had brushed bat on the way through but was unable to convince his skipper, who had a solitary spare review up his sleeve.

When subsequent replays indicated it had indeed clipped Babar's glove before making contact with his back leg, Australia might have felt the ghosts of draws recently past were making an unwelcome return.

It also provided a moment of balance after Pakistan felt aggrieved Azhar Ali had copped the rough end of a DRS call when he was also ruled caught at slip by Smith off Lyon.

The Babar boo-boo would not have proved a costly waste if a much more obvious opportunity had been grasped four overs later.

On the cusp of tea, and with his third half-century of the series beckoning, Babar succumbed to a rush of blood by charging Lyon and, despite finding the ball dragged down into the pitch, he went through with his pre-meditated slog-sweep and immediately hung his head as it ballooned into the deep.

However, Travis Head at deep mid-wicket failed to track the ball's trajectory and initially doubled back towards the rope before realising it would fall short and his mad scramble to make up the ground ended with a full-frontal dive but no catch.

Lyon dropped to his haunches in similar scenes to the famous final day of the 2019 Ashes Test at Leeds, a vignette from which had played out earlier in the day when Babar (on 16) was involved in a mid-pitch mix up with Azhar Ali.

But Head's off-balance throw to the bowler's end stumps burst through Lyon's hands as the batter desperately tried to reclaim his ground, bringing to mind a similar squandered chance that had cost them a win at Headingley as Ben Stokes led England's stunning charge.

Hopes that Babar might pull off an equally triumphant and unlikely run chase for his team surfaced briefly in a flurry of boundaries after tea, when Australia took the second new ball and conceded 22 in three overs.

However, just as the crowd at Gadaffi Stadium were working themselves into a patriotic frenzy, Babar misread a delivery that skidded through and Smith's moment of redemption arrived.

Prior to departure for Pakistan last month, Cummins had foreshadowed his team would need to play "grinding cricket" if they were to improve their recent record on the subcontinent, and noting Pakistan's preference to push games deep into the fifth day.

But it's fair to assume that, even allowing for that mission statement, they did not anticipate the back-breaking nature of three lifeless pitches that meant they had to bowl the most number of deliveries (4035) by an Australia outfit in a series of maximum three Tests in Asia since Richie Benaud's team toured Pakistan in 1959.

The hard-earned win was the third Australia has achieved in their nine Test sojourns to Pakistan across 66 years, and only the second time in the past decade they've won a match on the subcontinent by bowling out a team in the fourth innings.

Image Id: F037689162F84B8683B3DB82D00A2A04 Image Caption: Australia's winning moment // Getty

The other came in the first Test against India, where Steve O'Keefe took 12 wickets on a rank turner in Pune in 2017.

When Pakistan set out after history this morning, they needed to score 278 from a minimum 90 overs at a rate of 3.09 per over, which exceeded the rate achieved throughout the Test's first four days.

Given a home-town win seemed the least likely of the pending outcomes (apart from a tie), a key to Pakistan securing another draw was opener Abdullah Shafique, who had faced more deliveries than anyone else in his team come the start of today's finale.

So it was with understandable delight and relief that Australia celebrated the 22-year-old's removal in the day's fourth over when he fell victim to a combination of canny bowling from Cameron Green and the vagaries of a last-day surface.

Green had begun the day in tandem with Cummins, and begun to generate pronounced in-swing to the right-handed Shafique, who played watchfully until he pushed forward to a delivery that held its line and caught the edge of the bat through to keeper Carey.

Whether Green had knowingly got the ball to go straight on, or if it caught the edge of one of the surface cracks on the flint-hard surface will never be definitively known, but the sight of Shafique departing with only his second sub-50 score of the series to his name provided an early fillip.

By the time Lyon entered the fray for the day's 11th over, Pakistan's scoring rate had slipped below 2.5 an over and another prediction made by Khawaja the previous evening – that scoring with any sort of fluency would be near-impossible on the deteriorating pitch – seemed ever-more prescient.

But as Australia knew from their eight previous visits between 1956 and 1998, it's never a proper Test tour of Pakistan without at least one umpiring controversy, even if this series' moment waited until the final day to arrive.

The primary differences to historic spats (that usually centred around local umpires' distaste for granting lbw appeals in favour of touring teams) was debate sparked by a catch at slip, and decided by an official sitting in the Gadaffi Stadium's grandstand.

It erupted when veteran batter Azhar Ali – playing his 95th Test but first in the city of his birth due to Lahore's long hiatus between matches – aimed a sweep at Lyon that ballooned so gently to slip that Smith was able to defy recent precedent and clutch the simple catch.

The Australia fielders around the bat, even Khawaja stationed at short mid-wicket, launched a vehement appeal in unison that saw on-field umpire Ahsan Raza unmoved but Cummins willing to gamble one of his team's two remaining reviews.

After a painstaking examination of the video and audio evidence presented, third umpire Asif Yaqoob deemed the small but distinct spike on 'snickometer' technology at the precise moment ball passed Azhar's blade provided sufficient proof for the decision to be overturned.

In contrast to the barely discernible blip on screen that some suggested might be attributed to the scrape of a batter's spikes or the wing flutter of a low-flying kite, it represented a seismic moment in the day.

Not only did Pakistan lose their most experienced batter who had endured more than 16 hours at the crease over his preceding four knocks, and was clearly furious with the decision, Australia had retained a precious review through their certainty bat had been involved.

From that moment, things suddenly started to happen.

Babar's arrival at the crease prompted Cummins to immediately take the ball, but it was Lyon who was creating issues for left-handed Imam ul Haq by operating over the wicket and landing in the footmarks created by teammate Mitchell Starc outside leg stump.

Imam's insistence on playing at deliveries that posed no threat to his pads saw him squeeze half-chances low past close catchers hovering either side of the wicket from consecutive deliveries, but he survived to lunch on 66.

To nobody's surprise, he fell just eight deliveries after resumption in the manner he had telegraphed.

In addition, the inside edge forced into his front pad that was smartly snaffled by Marnus Labuschagne at silly mid-off was detected by umpire Raza who adjudged Imam out and the batter's review – which confirmed the decision – also revealed a similarly small audio spike to Azhar's earlier verdict.

Not that Pakistan was alone in squandering reviews as the intensity grew.

A beseeching shout for lbw when Starc continued his torment of Fawad Alam (on 7) was ruled not out, but a quick conference among the fielding team sent it to the video referee whose job was made straightforwardly simple by the obvious inside edge on to the batter's pad.

However, as has been the case throughout a forgettable campaign for the unorthodox left-hander, Fawad failed to prosper and was pinned in inevitable fashion on the crease by the unrelenting Cummins for 11.

In calling for, and torching, Pakistan's penultimate review which confirmed umpire Aleem Dar's adjudication the ball would have smashed into the middle of off-stump, Fawad displayed his clear disbelief that a campaign that netted him 33 runs at 8.25 had ended in such a wholly predictable manner.

Even more costly was the domino effect of Fawad's denial, when in Cummins' next over Mohammad Rizwan – last-day century-maker in Karachi and his team's final recognised batting hope – copped an unplayable inswinging yorker that hit him flush on the front foot.

Umpire Dar showed little hesitation in raising the finger as Rizwan hobbled back into his crease, but was obviously unsure if a review was merited as he consulted with his batting partner and skipper who – having seen one squandered minutes earlier – advised the keeper not to bother.

Rizwan had barely limped from the field before replays showed impact had come outside off-stump and, under one of the game's more curious laws, he would have still been batting had he referred the call.

By that stage, Pakistan's run rate was battling to stay above two an over which meant an historic win was effectively off the table and – with only Babar and his bowlers left to defy the remaining 45 overs – the prospect of another brave draw was also rapidly dwindling.

Qantas Tour of Pakistan 2022

Pakistan squad: Babar Azam (c), Mohammad Rizwan (vc), Abdullah Shafique, Azhar Ali, Faheem Ashraf, Fawad Alam, Haris Rauf, Hasan Ali, Iftikhar Ahmed, Imam-ul-Haq, Mohammad Wasim Jnr, Naseem Shah, Nauman Ali, Sajid Khan, Saud Shakeel, Shaheen Shah Afridi, Shan Masood, Zahid Mahmood.

Australia Test squad: Pat Cummins (c), Ashton Agar, Scott Boland, Alex Carey, Cameron Green, Marcus Harris, Josh Hazlewood, Travis Head, Josh Inglis, Usman Khawaja, Marnus Labuschagne, Nathan Lyon, Mitchell Marsh, Steve Smith (vc), Mitchell Starc, Mark Steketee, Mitchell Swepson, David Warner.

First Test: Match drawn

March 12-16: Match drawn

March 21-25: Australia won by 115 runs

Pakistan ODI and T20 squad: Babar Azam (c), Shadab Khan, Abdullah Shafique*, Asif Afridi, Asif Ali, Fakhar Zaman, Haider Ali, Haris Rauf, Hasan Ali, Iftikhar Ahmed, Imam-ul-Haq*, Khushdil Shah, Mohammad Haris, Zahid Mahmood, Mohammad Rizwan, Mohammad Wasim, Saud Shakeel*, Shaheen Afridi, Shahnawaz Dahani, Usman Qadir (*ODIs only)

Australia ODI and T20 squad: Aaron Finch (c), Sean Abbott, Ashton Agar, Jason Behrendorff, Alex Carey, Ben Dwarshuis, Nathan Ellis, Cameron Green, Travis Head, Josh Inglis, Marnus Labuschagne, Mitchell Marsh, Ben McDermott, Steve Smith, Marcus Stoinis, Adam Zampa

March 29: First ODI, Lahore

March 31: Second ODI, Lahore

April 2: Third ODI, Lahore

April 5: Only T20I, Lahore

All matches to be broadcast in Australia on Fox Cricket and Kayo Sports