Australia vs Pakistan 2016: 1st Test, Day 2 Stats - Pakistan suffer their worst ever middle-order collapse

Even a layman in Pakistan will advise you on the three things that are inevitable in life – Death, taxes and the good old Pakistani batting collapse. Following an epic meltdown in Hamilton last month, they continued the trend during the second day of the day-night series opener against Australia at the Gabba.

Resuming from their overnight score of 288/3, the hosts suffered a minor jolt themselves but rode on the back of Peter Handscomb’s maiden Test ton to crawl past the 400-run mark. After watching the last Australian pair add 49 runs, Pakistan made sure that their collapse was the one which should grab the headlines.

One by one, the visiting batsmen came in and walked away without bothering to spend enough time to get adjusted to the conditions. Though opener Sami Aslam battled hard by facing 100 deliveries, his strike rate of 22 did not affect the Aussies too much. Eventually, Pakistan ended the day at 97/8 and left themselves staring at a humongous 332-run deficit.

Here are some interesting statistics from the second day’s play.

0 – Number of countries where Pakistan’s fast bowlers have a worse historical average than in Australia. The pacers average 38.37 Down Under which is more than 2 points higher than their next worst in South Africa.

1 – This was the first time that Mohammad Amir took at least four wickets in a Test innings since his comeback from the spot-fixing ban. From 16 innings before this one, he could only manage 3 three-wicket hauls.

1 – This was also the first time in ten years that Younis Khan registered two ducks in the same calendar year.

2 – Instances of two visiting bowlers taking four or more wickets in the same Test innings in Australia since 2010. Both those came in this year with Amir (4) and Wahab Riaz (4) joining Kyle Abbott (6) and Kagiso Rabada (4) in the Hobart Test.

16 – Combined runs scored by Younis from his last six Test innings. Prior to his golden duck here, the ageing veteran had scored 11, 2, 1, 2 and 0 in matches across Sharjah, Christchurch and Hamilton.

24 – Total runs contributed by Pakistan’s 3^rd to 8^th wickets in this innings which is their lowest ever in Tests. Their previous lowest of 25 runs had also come against Australia but at the WACA in 1981.

37 – Younis’ average in Australia from seven Test innings with one fifty. It’s the only country where he does not have a Test century to his name. In contrast, he averages 65.66 from 10 innings against Australia in home/neutral venues with three centuries and two fifties.

58 – Combined runs scored by Asad Shafiq from his last seven Test innings. Before this one wherein he was dismissed for just 2, the right-hander had registered scores of 0, 23, 17, 16, 0 and 0.