Babar Azam makes Aussies sweat as fighting ton takes second Test into fifth day

Only strange decisions to newbies and the clueless. I'm pretty sure you'll find the last time we made a team follow on we lost. Lesson learned. The problem being we batted to well in the second innings negating the pitch excuse for the batters. Still there was plenty of time to bowl them out if we were capable enough and held the catches. So many runs scored by so few batters.

No, nothing about it. Yet, that's not what I said. Stats can inform but they do not establish a permanent pecking order. You are determined for lists to do that so you won't try to read with comprehension. You will only read with the intention to gainsay. That's pointless.

Yes it was simple. The list is long gone from my screen, but it showed 9 countries listed in order of the bowling averages of their spinners in the fourth innings of Test matches in the last five years. Australia was ninth out of nine. There was nothing about being fourth anywhere. Maybe they were fourth in some other category- strike rate, economy? - though I don’t think so. But the point of the list was averages. As I said, needs further digging to assess the significance but at first glance it seems worrying we are behind teams with really ordinary spinners.

Look at the list. It's very, very simple.

I was being nice. “ 2 runs average/wicket and Australia sits 4th on the list. ” makes no frigging sense.

You don't, do you?

Not how many they take. It was the average runs per wicket. Don’t follow your first sentence.

2 runs average/wicket and Australia sits 4th on the list. The major reason our spinners don't take as many is because our quicks get them all. More to the point, the other teams don't gave wicket-taking tests. He will certainly have taken over 150 wickets on those final 2 games

They’ve just put up some stats showing that Australian spin bowlers (which is pretty much only Lyon) have the worst average in the 4th innings out of the 9 serious Test playing countries over the last 5 years. It would be interesting to dig further to see whether that’s because we’ve played a disproportionately low number of games in sub-continent in that period. But it’s striking that we are below teams that don’t have good spin attacks or spin friendly wickets like NZ, Windies, SA and England, and well below NZ and Windies.

If it is 2/204 at tea, Pakistan win If it is 4/204 at tea, draw if it is 5/204 at tea, Australia win.

Agreed. If there is a trend over time, then it needs to be looked at. But it's too small a sample size to draw any trend lines right now. That said, combined with the Ashes, there have been a few issues re keeper/first slip in terms of separation and setback, which do warrant closer consideration.

Babar would *not* have faced the ball of the Smith drop

Pakistan may have been 3-38 if Smith hung on to that catch. Or Pakistan may have been ~1-38 if Azhar had have reviewed the Green dismissal when it hit his gloves. In which case Babar would have faced that ball that Smith dropped. Sliding door moments. Or had Shafique not had a brain-fade run out in the first innings, in which case perhaps the first innings collapse may not have happened. -- These things - a dropped catch, a poor run, the wrong use of DRS in an LBW - happen in every match. These things should be expected to happen and should not be focused in on to retrospectively o justify/explain the macro approaches to match situations. -- And yes, these stats you presented are the stats over the same time period since Kolkata 2001 when Australia enforced the follow on. After Kolkata, S Waugh enforced it on 7 more occasions and won every time. The last time Australia enforced the follow on - which was against Pakistan - Australia also won. Hence why relying on historical stats and ignoring the match situation in front of you, is foolhardy. We are playing away from home, in Pakistan's home conditions. The facts are, Australia gave up clear momentum by batting again. It had decimated Pakistan during Day 3 and had the opportunity to immediately get them right back in, before they had the opportunity to regroup and whilst the day's conditions were still about the same re what had just gone before. But Australia didn't and the reasons for not doing so on balance are highly questionable IMO. It has been a too-defensive approach, unnecessarily in my view. Australia may still win, this time, but that does automatically make the strategic decisions in the match the right ones.

Lyon averaged 55.11 in 20/21 season and 35.57 this season. Might just be time to stick a fork in and say its done.

SA clearly the best. The rest are basically the same.

Australia got off to a good start with the ball yesterday, having Pakistan 2/21 and would have been 3/38 if Smith had hung onto his catch. Momentum shifted after that drop when Babar and Abdullah Shafique put on a very good partnership. What's to say something similar wouldn't have happened if Pakistan had followed on? It's a subjective opinion that enforcing the follow on would have been better - you can never prove or disprove the counter-factual. Whilst you say you don't care about the stats, it is a simple fact that Australia has never lost or drawn a game when they've had the opportunity to enforce the follow-on but declined to do so. That's a 29-0 record, 24 off which have come since 2004. When enforcing the follow-on, their record is won 51, lost 3 and drawn 7, though most of the losses and draws are from decades ago. Since Kolkata 2001 their follow-on record is won 13, drawn 1. So hard to conclude the follow-on makes any appreciable difference in a team's prospects, almost as if it is very rare not to win if you have a 200+ run lead.

100%. And the final piece here is that IF Australia needed to come out and score a small-ish total in a short-ish amount of time, at least they would then be more in control of their own destiny by batting, rather than relying on getting the opposition’s wickets at the end of day 5. As said at stumps day 3, the odds are heavily in favour of an Australia win, however the decision not to enforce the follow on when Australia had both the ascendency and great momentum, reduces those odds; seemingly unnecessarily - or for reasons which are not clear. Any “rest” benefit for Australia’s bowlers was always likely to be more than wiped out against the opportunity for the Pakistan batsmen to get a breather and regroup after a shell-shocker of a first innings. Since the middle of yesterday day 4, Australia had still retained the ascendency, but Pakistan has had the momentum. Australia may very well still win based on the judgement calls from the leadership for this match, but what about next time, or the time after that? And for the record, I don’t care what “stats” say about whether Australia has won by enforcing or not enforcing the follow on in matches 10 or 20 years ago involving players from both teams who are not playing here, let alone the different circumstances re the match and ground conditions. It’s as irrelevant a stat as Pakistan assuming Australia would not score 550 batting first because it only ever happened <5% in Test history. Or Australia assuming it would bowl out a side for under 150 first up after scoring a 550, because it’s happened less than 1% in Test history.

Yes unlikely of course, i think the best that can happen from Pakistan point of view is a surviving draw. On this pitch Australia can always contain runs if they have to. My experience tells me if pakistan are 404 for 4 at tea, it is still Australia's game

Not sure I agree with your point 2. Australia scored at 4.3 rpo in a match where none of the other innings have gone above 3 rpo. There was a clear intent to push on the score. It's easy to say score at T20 pace looking on from afar, but the pitch was slow with variable bounce. It's a hard pitch to take wickets or score runs quickly. I thought they might bat around 5-10 more overs than they did and have a short crack before lunch but overall think the declaration was fine. Got to back yourself to defend 500. Having a tiny carrot could even come into Australia's favour today if Pakistan decide to chase the runs and lose some wickets trying to push the score on. Despite the great partnership in the afternoon, Pakistan are still extremely unlikely to win the test and Australia still favourites over the draw. Pakistan have given themselves a realistic chance of drawing if they can continue to bat out of their skin, a win still requires miracles though.

All that is correct except point 2. They were scoring at nearly 5 an over. They are quick runs. Would have been lot better to shock their openers by sending them in straightaway, openers would have been more nervous, legs not warmed up enough, no time to get that feel of the ground and settle down. That half an hour batting definitely helped Pakistani batsmen. Worse still, while the Australian bowlers got some rest, so did the Pakistani batsman. Instead of being told to follow on and go straight back in, they got to rest, think about what they did wrong, think about what they will need to do the next day, get a morning net session in to warm up and dust off cob webs and mentally reset.