Starc’s late strike dents Pakistan’s determined fightback

Despite a rollicking knock of 90 from 107 balls by Mitchell Marsh in front of his adoring home fans, Australia's push in the first NRMA Insurance Test was blunted by some defiant top-order resistance from Pakistan who stood firm in pursuit of a distant first-innings target.

Marsh's innings lifted Australia to a hefty 487, a score that would have been even more daunting if not for the lone hand of debutant pacer Aamir Jamal who snared six wickets in an impressive first outing.

By stumps on day two, the visitors had reduced the deficit by 132 for the loss of two key wickets, with their decision to load up on batting strength for the series opener ensuring they still have significant firepower in the sheds.

Opening pair Abdullah Shafique and Imam-ul-Haq were not daunted by the imposing target, but neither were they in any hurry to reel it in despite skipper Shan Masood's pre-match pledge his team wanted to play positively.

In the face of relentlessly accurate examination by Australia's seamers which stood in contrast to their own bowling effort, Pakistan's first-wicket duo defended resolutely and left judiciously and pocketed a solitary boundary in the first 10 overs.

But despite numerous play-and-misses on a pitch that continues to offer encouragement to seamers, they offered no genuine chances until spinner Nathan Lyon returned for a second spell in the final session.

The Australians felt they had Shafique caught down the leg side from an attempted glance, but their call for a review only confirmed umpire Joel Wilson's on-field adjudication the ball had not made contact with the right-hander's bat.

Shortly after, Shafique was almost the victim of a smart ploy by Marnus Labuschagne at short leg who flicked the ball back to keeper Alex Carey who stood poised with ball in glove as the opener momentarily lifted his foot off the turf but the bails did not tumble at his gentle touch.

However, the breakthrough finally arrived in Lyon's next over when, having shifted his line of attack to around the wicket, he lured Shafique down the track and the accomplished batter sliced an attempted flick through the leg side into the hands of leg slip.

Masood then immediately signalled his intention to remedy the ponderous scoring rate by taking to Lyon in a clear bid to hit him off his length, but paid the price in the shadow of stumps when an extravagant drive against Mitchell Starc was deemed to have brought a catch behind upon review.

His dismissal saw Test debutant Khurram Shahzad sent to the middle as cover for Pakistan's most accomplished batter and recently replaced captain Babar Azam, who will carry heavy responsibility for further narrowing the gap when invariably called into action tomorrow.

Marsh had appeared destined for a second Test hundred in his home town – the first being the 181 he plundered at the nearby WACA Ground in the 2017-18 Ashes series – when he advanced his score from an overnight 15 to 90 not out by lunch.

But when he fell to the first delivery after the break as he aimed to increase that total by four, the day two crowd of 17,666 turned their gaze to Australia's vaunted bowling attack who were expected to make a better fist of conducive conditions than Pakistan's often inconsistent quicks.

The exception was Aamir in his maiden Test outing, who stood head and shoulders above his fellow seamers to claim 6-111 from 20.2 overs.

Aamir dropped to his knees and kissed the Perth Stadium turf when he removed Australia skipper Pat Cummins to complete his five-for on debut, becoming the second Pakistan bowler to achieve the feat in Australia after Arif Butt's 6-89 at the MCG in December 1964.

When he wrapped up Australia's innings with the dismissal of Lyon in his next over, Aamir's teammates successfully appealed to umpire Richard Illingworth for the match ball that was duly handed over and clasped gleefully by the debutant as he led his team from the field.

But the feelgood moment could not airbrush the reality Pakistan's bowlers had struggled as a collective, which meant their batters faced a sizeable struggle to haul them back into the match.

Any doubts as to how Australia planned to approach day two having resumed at 5-346 were erased in the morning's second over when Marsh helped himself to contrasting boundaries – an edge past the slips then a deft clip off the pads – from debutant seamer Khurram.

The allrounder and Carey then extended their sixth-wicket stand beyond 50 with a steady flow of runs before Marsh cut loose with the return of Faheem Ashraf's gentle medium pace towards the end of the first hour.

Ashraf was met with a slash over the slips cordon, a thunderous pull over mid-wicket and finally a scorching cover drive that brought boundaries as Marsh added 14 to his score.

But no sooner had he reached 50 (off 66 balls faced) via another ferocious pull shot, to sustained applause from his home-town crowd, than the union was broken against the trend of play.

Having faced a largely innocuous opening hour of bowling from Pakistan's all-pace attack, Carey copped the ball of the match to that point when Aamir produced a 138kph peach that angled into the left-hander from around the wicket and straightened sufficiently to beat the bat and clip the top of off stump.

From that point Aamir, who had been deployed today behind new-ball pair Shaheen Shah Afridi (1-96) and Khurram (2-83), proved a constant threat and was singlehandedly responsible for keeping Australia's first innings score below 500.

The 27-year-old, whose international experience prior to this Test was four T20 appearances for Pakistan, had boldly predicted after day one his team would wrap up the Australia innings within an hour of play resuming today.

Had he been entrusted with the ball less than four overs old at day's start that might have proved more than an idle boast, given he claimed four of the five wickets to fall as Australia were bowled out 15 minutes after lunch.

After spearing through Carey's defence, the former Pakistan under-19 representative thought he had trapped Starc lbw with a ball that darted past the left-hander's edge, only for the on-field decision of not out upheld upon Pakistan's review despite technology showing it was shaving leg stump.

Aamir's disappointment was fleeting when he reprised the Carey delivery next ball to rattle Starc's wicket, with Marsh still 31 shy of a century and losing batting partners at pace.

He forged a 27-run stand with skipper Cummins but found himself starved of the strike immediately before the break, leaving the expectant crowd on edge during the interval with his score showing 90 not out.

Whether it was pre-meditated or simply Marsh's desire to get to milestone quickly was not immediately clear, but his attempt at a forceful front-foot drive at the first ball after the break brought nothing more than a tilted middle stump and stunned silence.

From there, the innings folded quickly as Aamir had Cummins (9) and Lyon (5) caught at slip in near identical circumstances as they fended at balls pitched back of a length, with the hosts losing their last three wickets for 11 runs off 19 balls.

Pakistan began their pursuit with history showing only three teams over the past 146 years of Tests in Australia – with the most recent being England's famous loss in the Adelaide Ashes encounter of 2006-07 – have conceded totals of 487 or more in the first innings and gone on to win.

Openers Abdullah and Imam showed they were not daunted by that weighty precedent with their 74-run opening stand, albeit with a scoring rate of barely two an over which indicated any such upset would not be coming any time soon.

NRMA Insurance Test series v Pakistan

First Test: December 14-18, Perth Stadium (1.20pm AEDT)

Second Test: December 26-30, MCG (10.30am AEDT)

Third Test: January 3-7, SCG (10.30am AEDT)

Australia squad: (first Test only) Pat Cummins (c), Scott Boland, Alex Carey, Cameron Green, Josh Hazlewood, Travis Head, Usman Khawaja, Marnus Labuschagne, Nathan Lyon, Mitch Marsh, Lance Morris, Steve Smith, Mitch Starc, David Warner

Pakistan squad: Shan Masood (c), Aamir Jamal, Abdullah Shafique, Abrar Ahmed, Babar Azam, Faheem Ashraf, Hasan Ali, Imam-ul-Haq, Khurram Shahzad, Mir Hamza, Mohammad Rizwan (wk), Mohammad Wasim Jnr, Noman Ali, Saim Ayub, Salman Ali Agha, Sarfaraz Ahmed (wk), Saud Shakeel and Shaheen Shah Afridi