PAK vs NZ, 2nd Test, Day 3:  Pakistan 407 for 9 (Shakeel 124*, Imam 83, Sarfaraz 78, Ajaz 3-88) trail New Zealand 449 by 42 runs

The third day of play in the second Test in Karachi ended with New Zealand taking a slew of wickets, thanks to Tom Latham’s two bombs. In a fading light lower-order collapse, Pakistan lost four wickets for 12 runs, but Saud Shakeel was unbeaten on 124 from 336 deliveries, his maiden Test century.

In the end, the day finished with New Zealand 42 ahead, with Pakistan having just a single wicket staying on a level Karachi surface that is yet to see any kind of crumbling.

The bowlers’ patience has been put to the test by the hosts, too. In the final session, they only added 70 runs in 31 overs, 34 of which came in the last ten overs of the day.

Shakeel faced 94 balls after tea, but only scored 23 runs. In total, he dismissed 66 of the 111 pace bowlers’ outside-off deliveries during his entire innings. Latham dropped a straightforward catch while going reverse-cupped at short point shortly after being brought in to stand precisely in that position, the only time he appeared to poke outside and away from his body. Shakeel was at the time on 102.

They added only 53 runs in 25 overs thanks to the grind of Shakeel and Agha Salman before Ajaz Patel finally broke the stand, but Michael Bracewell’s sharp catch at slip was to blame. Salman attempted to sweep Ajaz, but the ball took a slight top edge, hit his right shoulder, and popped toward Bracewell. Bracewell went first to his left, thinking about the shot and the bowler’s around-the-wicket angle, but he immediately skipped to his right to get that on the second attempt despite falling.

That allowed for several late wickets, and Hasan Ali swung Ajaz to deep midwicket in the 127th over, where Devon Conway made a smart catch close to the ropes. At silly point to Ajaz four balls later, Latham saw Naseem Shah push and his right hand fall off. Despite this, it was a difficult opportunity due to a lack of reaction time.

However, two overs later, Ish Sodhi joined in the fun by cleaning up Naseem and Mir Hamza with the googly and the leg spinner, respectively, off consecutive balls. However, Pakistan won the day thanks to Shakeel and the final man, Abrar Ahmed.

In the previous session, Pakistan had scored a lot of runs quickly, scoring 113 runs at a rate of more than four runs per over. Sarfaraz Ahmed, who hit an entertaining 78 to keep adding runs on comeback, was largely responsible for that.

He scored 61 runs, including his third fifty in a row, especially against Ajaz, who he picked 22 off 16 deliveries. Even when Sarfaraz was playing Southee with the second new ball, he walked down and across the field to prevent any movement. The third umpire checked multiple replays from various angles before ruling it out, and it took some nimble glovework by Tom Blundell to stump Sarfaraz minutes before tea.

He had lost his balance after missing a delivery from Daryl Mitchell’s down leg. When his back leg got close to his front leg, he tried to drag it back, but Blundell was able to whip the bails off despite taking the ball far down the leg side. That occurred just two balls after Sarfaraz had been saved by the DRS when Mitchell’s first delivery had ruled him out leg before wicket.

Southee broke the solid 83-run stand between Imam and Shakeel earlier in the day when he forced the former to play away from his body, with replays showing a faint nick off the toe end of the bat. Imam-ul-Haq missed out on a century for the second time in succession, falling for 83. After Imam fell, Sarfaraz came out to bat and got into a game of cat and mouse with Sodhi. The leg spinner beat Sarfaraz off the main ball he bowled to him, however wound up surrendering 25 off the 32 balls he bowled to him.

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Yet, the two spinners Sodhi and Ajaz got into the activity as the third day approached its end, leaving New Zealand with a chance of a pitiful first-innings advantage even without any evil spirits in the pitch yet.