Carey underlines value with 'vital' knock

By the end of an eventful fourth day of the Boxing Day Test, Alex Carey found it difficult to recall that he had been batting at the start of it.

"I think it's been a seven-hour day, this one, it's been quite long," Carey told cricket.com.au after Australia clinched victory with nine minutes of play to spare on Friday. He was wrong. It had in fact been an almost eight-and-a-half-hour day.

Long enough for most to have forgotten all about the wicketkeeper's contribution to the Benaud-Qadir Trophy-sealing win.

"I know there has been some discussions around where he's at, but he showed the quality of player he was in a tight situation," coach Andrew McDonald said the following morning.

McDonald was of course part of the selection panel that made the call to drop Carey for Josh Inglis from the ODI team only weeks earlier, the first time Australia have ever switched keepers in the middle of a men's World Cup.

In the longest format, however, Carey continues to show his value.

When most look back on his 2023, their most vivid Alex Carey memory will be the contentious Lord's stumping of Jonny Bairstow.

Dig a little deeper and one finds that he turned in decisive performances in Australia's three other most memorable Test victories this year.

In Indore, where Australia pulled off a rare Test triumph in India, Carey made an enormously difficult stumping look simple off a snorting Matthew Kuhnemann turner to remove Rohit Sharma in the game’s first session. McDonald later identified it as a turning point: "If he doesn't execute that, Sharma gets a look at the wicket, he plays differently and the game rolls in a different direction."

In the Ashes series opener at Edgbaston, Carey executed an equally tough stumping off Nathan Lyon to dismiss a rampant Joe Root, having earlier scored 66, on the way to a memorable two-wicket win.

Here in Melbourne, Carey capped off his unheralded year with another unheralded performance after Australia were pushed as close as they've come to a home Test defeat since India's upset series win in 2020-21.

On what turned out to be the final ball of the day three, Carey had watched from the other end as Steve Smith, from his 176th ball faced, prodded a Shaheen Shah Afridi bouncer to gully.

At that stage, Australia were only 241 runs in front and Carey now had only the tail for company.

When he was out inside-edging Shaheen behind for four in the first innings, his former IPL coach Ricky Ponting suggested the left-hander had a technical issue lining up left-arm pacemen coming at him from over the wicket, and right-armers coming around.

"His shoulders, feet and hips are pointed back where a right-arm bowler (coming over the wicket) would be bowling the ball from," Ponting told Channel Seven. "I think all he needs to do is, just square up his shoulders a little bit more to where the ball is coming from."

This was not news to Carey, nor McDonald, who said: "He does get his head outside the line at a time, it's no different to any other batter.

"Just the ability to get that straightened up early in your innings is always a challenge when you're under a bit of pressure. He's aware of where his 'work-ons' are and once he does straighten his head up, he looks a fine player."

Pakistan, having dismissed Carey in Perth when Aamir Jamal bowled him with a peach from around the wicket, zeroed in on this perceived flaw with the Test at the critical juncture early on day four.

Carey was ready for it.

"I think more of a mindset (change), just trying to line up the left-armer and right-armer around the wicket ... just trying to get my alignment right," he said of what he changed after his first-innings dismissal.

"I felt good in the middle over in Perth as well and got a really good ball over there. Probably a little bit disappointed first innings just with that drive (off Shaheen) on this wicket.

"I try not to get too many voices. There's a lot of a lot of amazing brains amongst this group. It's up to me to (work out) what feels good. I felt good in the first innings, just made a poor decision.

"But you go away and analyse it a little bit, hit some balls in the nets and then go out and react and see what happens."

Of the 101 balls Carey ended up facing, only five were bowled from right-armers coming over the wicket.

Only when he walked at left-armer Mir Hamza with Australia nine wickets down did he err to be trapped lbw for 53. He had put on 75 for the last four wickets.

Australia won by 79 runs.

"Vitally important as a team," was McDonald's description of Carey's hand.

"It's always a tricky situation, you'd prefer a batter to be in with him for a longer period of time, especially when he was moving as well I've seen for a period of time with that innings.

"To navigate that, I think it was 75 runs for the last four wickets, they were critical runs. I was impressed with the way he was able to strike the ball."

NRMA Insurance Test series v Pakistan

First Test: Australia won by 360 runs

Second Test: Australia won by 79 runs

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