Australia v Pakistan Second Test Report Card, Day Two

Featuring being done with Joel, handsome ruthlessness and big eagles

Being Done With Joel
Grade: B+

Australia resumed the second day on 3/187 and soon lost Travis Head, caught smartly at slip. Nobody cared. Indeed, by my calculations, a grateful Australian cricket-loving populace will tolerate from Travis Head approximately fourteen to eighteen hundred further failures before they even begin to question whether a World Cup win and associated memes is worth it. Rightly so, too.

Marnus Labuschagne, Alex Carey and Mitchells Starc and Marsh then followed at regular intervals in a session extended to make up for the rain delay on day one.

Marsh would have been gone even sooner had Joel Wilson had his way, international cricket’s guessing-most umpire firing out Marsh in consecutive balls, only for the shaggy-maned, prairie-roaming, bovine all-rounder to overturn both decisions via DRS.

By the time the second faux-wicket, a caught behind, was revealed to have at no stage touched Marsh’s bat, instead clipping his pad, third umpire Richard Illingworth was done with it. “Fuck it. I can't even be bothered with the ball-tracking, Joel,” he said. “Sort yourself out. You’re on screen now.”