Mitchell Starc spearheaded Australia to a stunning final day innings victory over Pakistan with a mercurial bat and ball performance to claim the series in Melbourne on Friday.<\/p>\n
The fast bowler smashed 84 off 91 balls with a record seven sixes and then captured four wickets for 36 to lead Australia to a resounding innings and 18-run victory over the hapless tourists.<\/p>\n
Skipper Steve Smith set the ball rolling for a dramatic victory when he declared Australia\u2019s first innings at 624 for eight just before lunch.<\/p>\n
That gave Australia a 181-run lead and a minimum of 70 overs to bowl out Pakistan.<\/p>\n
In the end the Australians needed only 53.2 overs to pull off an emphatic victory and, with their 39-run win in the first Gabba Test, to clinch the three-Test series.<\/p>\n
While Smith was named man-of-the-match for his unbeaten 165, it was Starc who put his stamp on the game with his sensational effort with bat and ball.<\/p>\n
Starc clubbed seven sixes, the most in an innings in a Melbourne Test, and was severe on Yasir Shah, belting the leg-spinner for five sixes.<\/p>\n
He then got into the act with the ball and took the wickets of Babar Azam, Sarfraz Ahmed, Wahab Riaz and Yasir Shah to clean up the Pakistan tail for Australia.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt finished a lot better than it started,\u201d Starc said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s fantastic for us to get that result. The belief was there and it was a fantastic way to finish.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe knew we only had two sessions to get those 10 wickets and together as a bowling unit we\u2019ve done really well.\u201d<\/p>\n
It was an astonishing collapse by the tourists, who appeared safe from defeat after amassing 443 for nine declared in their first innings over the first three rain-affected days before losing control of the match.<\/p>\n
The defeat was Pakistan\u2019s 11th straight test loss in Australia after their last win in Sydney in 1995.<\/p>\n
Skipper Smith set up the exciting finish with a calculated declaration shortly before lunch.<\/p>\n
He called a halt to a massive first innings at 624 for eight-remaining unbeaten on 165 off 246 balls-to give his fast bowlers a crack at the Pakistan openers just before the interval.<\/p>\n
Starc\u2019s seven sixes surpassed the record in an innings in a Melbourne Test held by Andrew Symonds with six in his 72 against South Africa in 2005.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was hanging in there with Smithy and having a good time and got a few sixes away as well,\u201d Starc said.<\/p>\n
Starc put on 154 runs for the seventh wicket with Smith off 172 balls and upon Nathan Lyon\u2019s dismissal Smith said that was enough and raced from the ground.<\/p>\n
It was the skipper\u2019s 17th Test century and fourth for the year and he will finish 2016 with 1,079 runs at 71.93.<\/p>\n
Pakistan were soon in trouble with Sami Aslam bowled by Josh Hazlewood off a bottom edge for two in the second over of the innings.<\/p>\n
Babar Azam was trapped leg before wicket for three by Starc on the first ball after lunch.<\/p>\n
Lyon, his bowling consistency questioned by his captain, produced an inspired two wickets in three balls to put Pakistan on the slide.<\/p>\n
He coaxed the veteran Younis Khan to push forward and be brilliantly caught by Peter Handscomb at short leg for 24 and then dismissed skipper Misbah-ul-Haq to an injudicious sweep for a duck.<\/p>\n
Lyon struck again just before tea when he had in-form Azad Shafiq snapped up by Handscomb at short leg for 16.<\/p>\n
Hazlewood removed first innings double-centurion Azhar Ali leg before wicket for 43 after tea, to get the Australians into the Pakistan tail.<\/p>\n
Jackson Bird bowled Mohammad Amir for 11 before Starc arrowed one in on Sarfraz Ahmed\u2019s stumps for 43 and followed on by cleaning up Wahab Riaz for a duck.<\/p>\n
Starc symbolically claimed the final wicket when Yasir Shah took a leading edge to spoon an easy catch for Bird at mid-on.<\/p>\n
Lyon finished with the figures of three for 33 off 14 overs and has now taken 223 wickets in 62 Tests.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Mitchell Starc spearheaded Australia to a stunning final day innings victory over Pakistan with a mercurial bat and ball performance to claim the series in Melbourne on Friday. The fast bowler smashed 84 off 91 balls with a record seven sixes and then captured four wickets for 36 to lead Australia to a resounding innings<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3701,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[289],"class_list":["post-3700","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-starc-stars-in-australias-stunning-win-over-pakistan"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bartabangla.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3700","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bartabangla.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bartabangla.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bartabangla.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bartabangla.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3700"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bartabangla.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3700\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bartabangla.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3700"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bartabangla.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3700"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bartabangla.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3700"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}