Pakistan steady, Australia in control

While it’s always fraught to pass judgement midway through a Test, with a series incomplete, it seems safe to suggest that the selection surgery Australia so urgently applied late last year is an unqualified success.

Two of the young batters brought into the XI in the wake of the Hobart horror today completed career-high centuries, and the new allrounder slotted into the mix comfortably if not commandingly.

But of greater significance was the fact a batting line-up that struggled to make it through a session against South Africa in the summer’s recent nadir posted its second consecutive 500-plus total.

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Piling on 8(dec)-538 against a demoralised and injury-hit Pakistan that looked likely to be on their knees before indefatigable opener Azhar Ali and veteran middle-order Younus Khan guided them stumps a precarious but slightly less critical 2-126.

The bold strategy that has seen Australia cycle through more Test try-outs than any home season since the upheaval of World Series Cricket in 1977 would seem – on admittedly early evidence – to have delivered a combination that can persevere.

The only blip today being the trio of golden chances – a pair of throws at the stumps that would have yielded run outs and a sharp chance at leg slip – from David Warner a day after he could do no wrong in the game’s opening session.

Which saw Azhar gifted a life on 12 when stranded mid pitch and a wicket there for the taking, and Younis a pair of reprieves on 32 when in an almost identical muddle and on twice that amount when his leg side flick off Nathan Lyon was shelled.

It remains to be seen just how heavily Pakistan can punish their hosts for those lapses, in a Test that Australia has dominated utterly from the day one coin toss.

The centre of attention upon resumption today, as it had been for much of the time after Warner lit the touch paper yesterday morning, was recent addition Matthew Renshaw’s impressively mature innings.

The lofty young Queenslander, via England and New Zealand, appeared set to become the first Australian batter to reach 200 in a Test innings before celebrating a 21st birthday.

A feat only achieved by two others in the 140 years until now – Pakistan’s Javed Miandad as a 19-year-old and West Indian George Headley (known fondly and respectfully through subsequent cricket history as ‘the Black Bradman’) at age 20.

Renshaw would have been even younger than the legendary Jamaican had he found the extra 33 runs he needed on re-starting his innings.

And seemed destined to claim that slice of history when he reached 182, which saw him just six runs shy of Clem Hill’s benchmark for the highest Test total by a 20-year-old on Australian soil, with a scorching drive to the cover boundary.

But three balls hence drew an uncharacteristic false stroke from the left-hander and an audible groan of dashed hope from the SCG crowd when he tried to guide the otherwise ineffectual Imran Khan and instead guided the ball to the base of his stumps.

It was one of the few ways Pakistan looked likely to get a breakthrough, although - as it transpired - it would the second-strangest dismissal of the innings.

Renshaw’s departure to a long and loud ovation, during which he executed a deft pirouette with arms aloft and outstretched in a true memorabilia moment, overshadowed the arrival of allrounder Hilton Cartwright in his debut Test.

As a player who had arrived at international level little known outside his adopted home town of Perth (having been born and raised in Zimbabwe), it seemed appropriate that the powerful 24-year-old should reach the middle while attention was focused elsewhere.

He became front and centre of the crowd’s consciousness when he faced up to his first ball in international cricket, delivered invitingly full and sufficiently wide by Mohammad Amir for Cartwright to lean forward and meet it with his full blade.

Briefly holding the pose in a magic moment of his own, as the ball speared across the SCG turf and was only slowed when it met the boundary rope.

For the remainder of his two-hour debut innings, Cartwright appeared largely in control and anything but overawed.

Save for a few occasions when he found himself jamming down late on deliveries with an angled bat, from where he squeezed the ball into his pads which might prove problematic in more evenly balanced match circumstances.

His 37 will be remembered for no other reason than it was the first innings of a new player, landing where it did between haunting failure and announcement of a future champion.

But it betrayed sufficient promise to suggest Cartwright might offer an answer to the number six question that’s vexed Australia’s selectors for years, especially when his steady if unthreatening medium-pace bowling (that he fleetingly unveiled later in the day) is factored into the package.

The other reason his maiden knock won’t resonate through the ages is that its entirety unfolded against the more compelling and contextual hundred that Peter Handscomb seemed destined to reach from the moment he began batting.

Which was in the final session of Tuesday during which he reached 40 almost invisibly as Renshaw’s achievement drew the limelight, and continued this morning in equally low-profile fashion.

Such is the surety of his temperament and the simplicity of his method, Handscomb might well become one of those in the Mark Waugh mould who is cursed with the epithet 'effortless'.

Certainly scoring runs in Test company has held few mysteries for the 25-year-old who boasts a record less than four matches into his career that few before him have managed.

The fact that his second ton in that time occupied a tick over five hours means it won’t be celebrated in the manner of Warner’s per-lunch triumph, and will likely be most readily recalled for the manner in which it ended.

In an effort to push Australia’s total beyond 500 as quickly as he could manage, Handscomb delved into Big Bash mode and attempted to cut a ball from his stumps so late that he kissed the stumps with the face of his bat prior to making contact with the ball.

That was the cue for Australia to crash and bash, Matthew Wade helping himself to a handy 29 from 33 balls before he holed out chasing more.

And Mitchell Starc briefly threatened to reprise his belligerent MCG knock when he clubbed two huge sixes in the space of a dozen balls and self-destructed aiming for a third.

A blow that almost reduced Pakistan’s already stretched bowling stocks when paceman Wahab Riaz collided in the course of competing for that final catch with substitute fielder Mohammad Rizwan, who was on the field in place of leg spinner Yasir Shah (suffering from a strained hamstring).

By the time the Pakistan fielders had untangled themselves and ascertained everyone was fine, the Australians had bolted to the dressing room and it became clear the declaration had been made.

That sense of disarray leaked into the start of the tourists’ innings, which saw debutant opener Sharjeel Khan produce a shot he'd want to eradicate in subsequent Tests (if they come about); an indiscrete waft that cost him his wicket in Josh Hazlewood’s second over.

And threatened to degenerate into the sort of tailspin not seen from Pakistan’s batting since day five in Melbourne last week when Babar Azam was trapped flush in front four balls later.

At that point, the visitors were 2-6 and a laughable 532 runs adrift, with hopes of pushing the Test beyond day three resting once more in the lap of Azhar Ali and a pair of middle-order veterans – Younus and struggling skipper Misbah-ul-Haq.