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Starc skittles Pakistan after Warner's triple ton

Left-armer takes four wickets to have the tourists reeling on 6-96 following Warner's record-breaking knock

Only some atypically intemperate Adelaide summer weather seems likely to slow Australia's charge to another thumping Test win and a series clean sweep, but that's been rendered a sub-text long before completion of day two.

For the second Domain Series Test match between Australia and Pakistan will, forever forward, be David Warner's.

The opening batter who less than three months ago looked a spent force in Test cricket, so wretched was his Ashes experience, now stands as only the seventh Australia men's player to own a Test triple-century and resides inside the top ten of highest individual scores the game has hosted.

Full highlights: Warner's epic 335 not out

In that rarefied space, he exists on one of the few honour rolls not to feature the sport's greatest name, Sir Donald Bradman, given that Warner's 335 not out eclipsed (by a single run) the knight's foremost Test knock.

And despite having spent 534 minutes at the crease as his team piled up 3-589 declared, Warner was back on the field after the briefest of breaks to claim the catch that sent Pakistan's pursuit on the road to ignominy.

The visitors resume tomorrow, with rain forecast to dampen the formal arrival of summer, 6-96 and trailing by 493 runs with only Babar Azam (43 not out) standing between Australia's rampant quicks and a string of tailenders still suffering nightmares of their impotent efforts with the ball.

A bulk of the wickets that fell in the evening session were claimed by Mitchell Starc (4-22), although Australia skipper Tim Paine was as much a factor with four catches including a one-handed gem flying in front of Joe Burns at first slip.

However, no effort could overshadow Warner who had begun this sunny Saturday as a drawcard, and ended it a legend.

Resuming undefeated on 166, and having plundered 154 a week earlier in the opening match in Brisbane, Warner could have been justifiably excused for believing he'd more than done his job and that others could take up the yoke.

But after his lean Ashes trot, where he returned just 95 runs at an average less than 10, the former vice-captain has shown himself to be driven like few before or since, and the discipline and mental steel that were hallmarks of his day-one innings were regathered, then redoubled.

Sealed with a kiss: Warner celebrates epic 300

While Pakistan's over-worked, underwhelming bowling arsenal likely won’t live long in the left-hander's memory as among the more fierce he's tamed, his feat stands undiminished as a triumph of skill and stamina.

That was best illustrated by the single he scurried that carried him past Bradman's best, and which prompted Paine's neatly timed declaration barely half an hour before the dinner break.

The fact that Warner set off for that run with the same urgency as in every other one he completed across the eight hours and 54 minutes he spent at the crease revealed more than the flood of words that poured from keyboards in gushing testament to his achievement.

But as has become the way of late, the milestone that the former vice-captain celebrated should not have been reached at all.

In posting his previous two Test centuries – against England at the MCG in 2017, and during last week's match at the Gabba – Warner was 'dismissed' before reaching triple figures only to have his dismissal annulled by the off-field umpire ruling a no-ball.

Today, that crucial call came from the on-field official, and Warner had already cruised beyond 200 when it was made.

But its impact was no less profound.

With 226 to his name, the opener made a rare misjudgment as he pushed hard at debutant paceman Musa Khan operating from around the wicket, and sliced a waist-high catch to Babar Azam in the gully.

Before the catch had been claimed, however, umpire Richard Illingworth's holler of 'no-ball' rendered the moment melodramatic, and Pakistan's already deflated morale plummeted through the floor.

Remarkably, this third reprieve in as many centuries was also the third occasion in which Warner's fortune has cost a bowler making his Test debut a maiden wicket – England's Sam Curran two years ago (when on 99), Pakistan teenager Nassem Shah last week (on 56) and 19-year-old Musa Khan this afternoon.

From that moment, it seemed pre-ordained that the only force likely to remove Warner from the bating crease was the timing of Paine's declaration.

In the interim, Warner kept racking up the milestones as his team continued to pile on the humiliation.

The opener passed his highest Test score of 253, which was also the previous top-score of his 10-year first-class career, shortly before the tea break.

Smith breaks records en route to magic milestone

An hour after the adjournment, he combined two moments of history when he erased Bradman's name from atop the list of highest Test scores at Adelaide Oval (299 against South Africa in 1931-32), which also meant he had secured his first-ever triple century.

The significance of that rare feat – in 142 years of Test cricket only 25 other men's players have reached 300 in an innings – spilled out in the most exuberant, elaborate victory dance to accompany his 23 Test tons to date.

Having punched Mohammad Abbas wide of mid-on, Warner had turned for the third run that would have carried him to 299 before the ball reached the rope.

As he passed his batting partner Matthew Wade, he let go an almighty roar followed by his signature skyward leap, before he threw back his back and bellowed again into the Adelaide air, already drenched with applause.

Another leap was followed by an extravagant pantomime bow towards the Adelaide Oval members who stood and cheered within the grandstand adorned with the name Warner had just expunged from history.

It was also a gesture that sent some of his delighted teammates, gathered boundary-side, into paroxysms of laughter.

No sooner had the adulation dimmed than talk began on whether the indefatigable fighter would set off in pursuit of Matthew Hayden's record Test score (380), and even the world benchmark of West Indies great Brian Lara (400) who was among the exultant crowd of 33,943 at Adelaide Oval today.

But it soon became clear that individual glory was not an item on the Australia team's Test match strategy.

In Abbas's next over, Warner unleashed a hefty hoick that cleared the mid-wicket boundary, a stroke so out of character with the rest of his watchful innings that it was the sole six of his knock.

It also clearly signalled a declaration was nigh.

That message was underscored next ball when Warner threw everything at a full delivery outside off stump – the channel in which he had so studiously left balls alone throughout his first 300 runs – and it hummed over the outstretched finger of Pakistan's lone slips fielder.

These were not the first suggestions that Australia was looking to increase the tempo, almost from the moment play resumed with the total a daunting 1-302.

Indeed, the two Australia wickets that fell amid Warner's master class today were the end result of aggressive intent.

Marnus Labuschagne, with whom Warner had piled on 361 runs for the second wicket, lost his off-stump on 162 when left-armer Saheen Shah Afridi swung the second new ball expertly through the Queenslander's attempted expansive off-drive.

The third wicket claimed by Shaheen, who comfortably claimed the title of least-worst of Pakistan's pedestrian bowling effort, came via an even more agricultural slog from Steve Smith.

The ex-Australia captain had contributed 36 to the 121-run third-wicket stand with Warner before he tried to deposit Shaheen into the Village Green party pit behind the members' grandstand, and was smartly caught behind the wicket from an inside edge.

It was to prove Pakistan's last noteworthy moment on a day that proved to be strewn with them.

Australia XI: David Warner, Joe Burns, Marnus Labuschagne, Steve Smith, Matthew Wade, Travis Head, Tim Paine (c & wk), Pat Cummins, Mitchell Starc, Nathan Lyon, Josh Hazlewood

Pakistan XI: Shan Masood, Imam-ul-Haq, Azhar Ali (c), Asad Shafiq, Babar Azam, Iftikhar Ahmed, Mohammad Rizwan (wk), Yasir Shah, Mohammad Abbas, Shaheen Afridi, Musa Khan

Domain Test Series v Pakistan

Australia squad: Tim Paine (c), Cameron Bancroft, Joe Burns, Pat Cummins, Josh Hazlewood, Travis Head, Marnus Labuschagne, Nathan Lyon, Michael Neser, James Pattinson, Steve Smith, Mitchell Starc, Matthew Wade, David Warner

Pakistan squad: Azhar Ali (c), Abid Ali, Asad Shafiq, Babar Azam, Haris Sohail, Imam-ul-Haq, Imran Khan Snr, Iftikhar Ahmed, Kashif Bhatti, Mohammad Abbas, Mohammad Rizwan (wk), Musa Khan, Naseem Shah, Shaheen Shah Afridi, Shan Masood, Yasir Shah.

First Test: Australia won by an innings and five runs.

Second Test: November 29 – December 3, Adelaide (d/n) (Seven, Fox & Kayo)