Five quick hits: Warner comes down from cloud nine and Lyon is stranded at 499

Australia make a perfect start to day three against Pakistan, but it leaves Nathan Lyon one step away from joining an exclusive club.

How it happened: Check out the live blog and recap of the day’s play.
Scorecard of the first test in Perth

Here are five brief results from day three at Perth Stadium.

1. They are called night watchmen for a reason.

Pat Cummins made the first breakthrough on the third day.(AAP Image: Richard Wainwright)

Test debutant Khurram Shahzad was given one of the most thankless tasks in world cricket when he was sent on the second night of the Test as a night watchman, protecting superstar Babar Azam.

He went to the end of the game without showing the kind of technically sound defense that might be expected from someone who has been given that job.

After almost being dismissed by his more credentialed batting partner on the first ball of the day, Shahzad only lasted two more before playing just inside Pat Cummins’ third over.

Both the middle and outside stumps felt the wrath of a cricket ball bowled in anger, and Shahzad, the job done, was back to the sheds.

2. Marsh cracks the code

Mitch Marsh took an important step by sacking Babar Azam.(Getty Images: Paul Kane)

Despite the initial advance, Pakistan seemed set to continue its stubborn resistance in the form of Babar Azam and Imam-ul-Haq.

The quartet of Pat Cummins, Josh Hazlewood, Nathan Lyon and Mitchell Starc had taken 375 wickets as a combination heading into the day’s play – third on the all-time list behind Moeen Ali, Jimmy Anderson, Stuart Broad and Ben Stokes (415 ) and Anderson, Broad, Joe Root and Stokes (387) for England.

But it wasn’t one of the big four who made the revealing breakthrough before lunch.

Local boy Mitch Marsh ran in and made Babar feel out of place, approaching Alex Carey.

It caused a pre-lunch collapse of sorts, Pakistan losing 3-22 in no time.

3. Carey avoids a calamity… only

Alex Carey had four ejections in the innings.(Getty Images: Cricket Australia/James Worsfold)

A hit and a catch before lunch are nothing to sneeze at for Alex Carey, but neither looked particularly convincing.

First, the catch to dismiss Babar, although perfectly competent, took it with his fingertips as he dived cleanly towards his right side.

A regulation catch will become part of the scoreboard, but it was a case of being millimeters away from disaster.

So Imam-ul-Haq’s perplexity was, on the face of it, perfectly sensible.

But replays showed that the ball, which spun about eight degrees towards leg and bounced brutally, was almost stuck at the end of the bag.

Sure, everyone counts and the wicket at the end of the day is the only thing that matters, but standards are high in the Test team, and with others waiting in the wings, Carey is definitely under the microscope.

That’s why his terrible loss to Aamir Jamal later in the innings was such a timely reminder of his undoubted class.

4. Lyon on the prowl

Nathan Lyon only failed to take a wicket once in his last 29 Test innings.(Getty Images: Cricket Australia/Will Russell)

With 496 Test wickets going into the summer, the Nathan Lyon wicket-keeper will always be a feature of this series.

But with this well-balanced attack, it is not often that one bowler takes a big bag of wickets, but rather the entire unit shares the spoils.

Still, when Lyon broke the initial partnership by landing Abdullah Shafique on the second day, he gave himself enough time to reach the famous 500 club as soon as possible.

He added fellow opener Imam-ul-Haq before lunch and stumped Aamir Jamal shortly before tea, exposing number 11 Shaheen Shah Afridi to his wiles.

But part-timer Travis Head spoiled the party, with the big seamer slotting one of his deliveries straight to Usman Khawaja at mid-on to end the innings.

Barring another soft tissue injury, Lyon will certainly join Shane Warne and Glenn McGrath as the only Australians with 500 Test wickets in short order; after all, he single-handedly failed to take a wicket in one of his last 29 Test innings.

But after Mitch Marsh’s 90 yesterday, it was a shame to see the Perth crowd forced to endure another anticlimax.

5. Warner… emboldens its critics?

David Warner was dismissed for his 13th Test duck.(Getty Images: Paul Kane)

If Warner’s 164 first innings were judged enough by all to silence his critics, even though his ability to score runs in Australia is not in doubt, then what is his four-ball duck doing in the second innings?

Look, let’s be honest, absolutely nothing.

In fact, it is nothing more than a statistical peculiarity.

Warner has only been dismissed for a duck 13 times in Test cricket – that’s just 6 per cent of his 201 innings – although they are very stacked towards the end of his career, with seven such instances in his 60 innings since 2019 and only six. in the first eight years and 141 innings of his career.

He is also quite in line with other Test openers: Matthew Hayden had 14 ducks in his 184 innings (7 per cent), while Alastair Cook had just nine in his 291 innings (3 per cent).

Warner has his century, his place in the team until Sydney is secured, and getting out early as Australia chase relatively quick runs on a pitch showing variable bounce is not going to change that.

But what is this series about if not arguing one last time about the merits of Warner’s place at the top of the order?