Cummins' Test-turning spell becoming all too familiar

Four balls. Two wickets. One of his victims is among the best batters on the planet, the other is tipped to become just as good. Their scalps was it all took for Pat Cummins to turn the Boxing Day Test.

With Pakistan on the brink of gaining the ascendancy for the first time all series, Cummins ripped the visitors' hearts out by dismissing Abdullah Shafique and Babar Azam to spark a collapse of 5-46.

For Australia, the best part is this has become de rigueur for their fast-bowling captain. Of Australians to have taken 200 Test wickets, only Glenn McGrath has a better bowling average. None have a better strike-rate.

Cummins only seems to be getting better.

His ball that nipped back and bowled Babar will be replayed often in the coming years, but it was not even his most satisfying dismissal of Pakistan's best player in this series. His set-up of Babar in Perth required a more sustained sequence of elite bowling and the end product, a snorting lifter that touched the right-hander's gloves on the way through to the keeper, was arguably a better delivery.

His caught-and-bowled off Abdullah Shafique was the result of a combination of expert strategy and supreme athleticism, yet it is not even the best match-turning caught-and-bowled he has pulled off against Pakistan. It will be difficult to top the one he took off Azhar Ali in Lahore given it put his side on the path to winning their first Test series in Asia in a generation.

And this was not even the best spell Cummins has bowled in the past six weeks. That title is surely reserved for his brilliance against India in the World Cup final boilover last month.

Babar must be wondering what else he can do to succeed down under. Deposed as captain only weeks ago, the world's fifth-ranked Test batter has copped two brutes from the man he thought would be his opposite number in this series. He has scores of 21, 14 and 1.

"It's a dream ball," Cummins said of his latest effort to dismiss Babar. "It's what you try to bowl most balls, but it's rare that it comes off.

"That wasn't a deliberate ball to seam in. It's fifty-fifty whether it will seam in or out. You try to create a bit of an angle, and if I don't know what it's doing, hopefully the batter doesn't know either."

The importance of Cummins' spell was heightened given the match situation.

Quite like they did in their first innings of their defeat in Perth, Pakistan's openers survived testing initial examinations against the new ball. This time, it was in even more difficult circumstances, with Abdullah and Imam-ul-Haq bunting and prodding away amid a bevy of lbw appeals and plays and misses.

Imam's contribution was a mere 10 runs, but his hour of batting meant freewheeling captain Shan Masood commenced his innings in more favourable conditions. Where his team's first 50 runs came off 110 balls, the next 50 came from just 60.

As promised before the series, Masood took on Lyon, twice hitting him over his head. His aggression had a freeing effect on Abdullah, too. The over after his skipper pumped Lyon back over his head for six, Abdullah hit 13 off a Mitchell Starc over to bring up his ninth 50-plus score in 16 Tests.

When Cummins brought himself on for his devastating second spell, Pakistan were 1-105 and an MCG pitch that had troubled both side's batters with both lateral and vertical movement looked to be flattening out.

First, Cummins put the brakes on his opponents. Pakistan had scored at better than four-and-a-half an over since Masood came to the crease, but Cummins allowed just two singles and a two in the first 17 balls of his new spell. The rest were dots.

On the last of those, a mis-timed drive attempt from Abdullah, the opener stood at the crease looking at the pitch and replaying his shot off the full but not quite drive-able delivery. Abdullah wanted to keep the scoreboard moving, put the pressure back on the Aussie bowlers, but Cummins had found a difficult length. He was in Abdullah's head.

Cummins' genius was to land the very next ball on the exact same spot, only this time from wider on the crease. Abdullah attempted another reaching drive, bunting it straight back to the bowler. An athletic catch completed the mastery.

"I rate him very highly as a fast bowler. He stuck to his plans and things worked really well for him," said the 24-year-old Abdullah, who was the leading run scorer in Pakistan's home series against Australia last year.

"He was planning something for me because I was playing well there. He took a good catch as well. The conditions are much different compared to Pakistan and he's a good bowler. As a batsman, you have to take your chances. He will not bowl loose deliveries, so you have to create them."

After needing just three deliveries to knock over Babar for the second time in as many innings, Cummins capped his day by changing ends and snagging another top-order wicket when Salman Ali Agha edged behind.

The shift in ends also highlighted his unselfishness; he revealed he only switched from the Shane Warne Stand End to the Member's End to accommodate fellow quick Josh Hazlewood.

The change did not affect his potency. Cummins led his side off on day two having taken 3-18 from his last 48 balls, a third of those runs coming off an enterprising swept six from Mohammad Rizwan.

"For me, it's always a bit of a feeling," he said with Australia holding a 124-run lead. "If you bowl a really good ball that beats the outside edge of the bat, you are trying to recreate that feeling again and repeat that."

Cummins is pretty good at doing just that.

NRMA Insurance Test series v Pakistan

First Test: Australia won by 360 runs

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

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

Australia squad: Pat Cummins (c), Scott Boland, Alex Carey, Cameron Green, Josh Hazlewood, Travis Head, Usman Khawaja, Marnus Labuschagne, Nathan Lyon, Mitch Marsh, 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, Mir Hamza, Mohammad Nawaz, Mohammad Rizwan (wk), Mohammad Wasim Jnr, Saim Ayub, Salman Ali Agha, Sarfaraz Ahmed (wk), Saud Shakeel and Shaheen Shah Afridi