The key to countering Starc and Hazlewood

Countering Australia’s new-ball pair of Mitchell Starc and Josh Hazlewood is fast becoming the hardest task in Test cricket.

The towering pacemen are in the top five best Test quicks in the world (Hazlewood second, Starc fifth), and have combined to take 144 wickets and strike every 44 balls when they’ve opened the bowling together to be narrowly behind the duo of Mitchell Johnson and Ryan Harris as Australia’s most lethal double act.

While that reads as a frightening resume, it’s not impossible to have success against the Australian brace who are employed to terminate batting line-ups.

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Pakistan enter the summer’s final Test at the Sydney Cricket Ground having already surrendered the series, but it’s not from a lack of effort by the visitors’ standout batsmen Asad Shafiq and Azhar Ali.

Both men have scored centuries during the tour, forced to adapt to the foreign pitches, tame the hostile atmosphere and perhaps most importantly, counter Starc and Hazlewood.

Azhar, Pakistan’s obdurate opener, batted 20 minutes short of 10 hours in the Boxing Day Test in compiling an unbeaten 205, the highest score by a Pakistani in Australia.

The right-hander had fallen to Starc twice in Brisbane (for 5 and 71) before putting his head down and soaking up 364 balls in his MCG epic.

Azhar was positive against his Gabba conqueror, scoring 69 runs and stroking eight boundaries from the 89 balls he faced from the left-arm tearaway, but against Hazlewood he found it much tougher.

From the 97 balls Hazlewood delivered to him in Melbourne, Azhar managed just 18 scoring shots that yielded 30 runs and a solitary four.

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Hazlewood got his man in the second innings, trapping Azhar lbw for 43, but facing Australia’s premier pacemen is one of Azhar’s greatest tests and most enjoyable aspects of opening the batting for his country.

"It’s a big challenge," Ali told cricket.com.au.

"They are top-class bowlers, especially the way Hazlewood bowls at you, keeps coming in and bowling that area all day long it makes you focus for a longer period of time.

"You see his analysis and even though he doesn’t get wickets he doesn’t give you anything.

"Starc always has a wicket-taking ball at any stage in his spell.

"He comes up and bowls a 150kph ball or surprise you with a good ball or surprise you with a yorker.

"You need to stay focused all the time.

"On the other hand I enjoy that challenge and facing that kind of bowling is a big challenge."

While we had to wait until the second Test for Azhar’s heroics, Shafiq lit up the day-night Test in Brisbane with a stunning rearguard century in the pursuit of the daunting and ultimately unreachable target of 490.

By scoring 137 at the Gabba, Shafiq knocked legendary West Indies allrounder Sir Garfield Sobers out of the record books to become the most prolific century-maker at No.6 with his ninth Test century at the position.

He entered at 4-165 in the 70th over at the loss of his captain Misbah-ul-Haq with the second new pink ball only 61 balls away from becoming available.

It took 13 deliveries to get off the mark, and when the second new ball was taken he faced a further 15 balls from Starc and Hazlewood without scoring a run, focused on surviving and seeing off the iridescent projectile.

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Shafiq had a life on 72 when Steve Smith put down a routine catch off Starc at second slip late in the final session on day four, but that steeled the right-hander to push onto stumps and into day five.

With a slash to deep point from third seamer Jackson Bird, Shafiq reached triple figures in the afternoon on day five, grinning from ear to ear as he acknowledged the applause from his teammates, opponents and the Gabba crowd.

A remarkable innings required a remarkable piece of bowling to end it, and it was Starc who delivered the searing bouncer that shot up from a length, crashed into Shafiq’s glove and ballooned to David Warner at gully that finished the brilliant knock.

"They are world-class bowlers," Shafic told cricket.com.au.

"I was just thinking that if I get through their first two spells against the second new ball that was about to come, I was thinking if I get through the first spell of Starc then the second one will be easier to handle because the pace of the bowler will just get down a bit and the new-ish ball is always difficult to handle.

"Once the ball got old then it’s easier to bat."

Batsmen around the world take note – it’s not impossible to counter Starc and Hazlewood.

All it takes is extreme concentration, a water-tight game plan, a bit of luck and most importantly you must enjoy it.