Babar Azam stepped forward to play a front-foot defensive stroke. Then he heard the death rattle. Then he heard the collective roar of 44,837 Australian fans.
His head snapped back in disbelief to see the bails dislodged. He turned his head forward again to look at where the ball had pitched, several inches outside the line of off stump. His front knee remained bent in the position it was when he played the stroke. His lips were unmoved, but his mind was whirling.
"Is ball pe main bowled kaise ho gaya? [How did I get bowled to that?]"
His eyes tracked down along the line of the ball's path from where it pitched to where it hit his stumps, checking again to confirm that his mind wasn't playing tricks on him.
"Is ball pe main bowled huwa [That did bowl me]."
He started walking to the dressing room. He took one look at his batting partner Shan Masood, who shook his head in disbelief. Babar said nothing. He turned to the scoreboard for a glimpse at the replay.
There it was in full view. The ball whizzed out of Pat Cummins' fingertips. The seam wobbled violently through the air. It pitched where Babar thought it would. His bat had gone to the line it started on. The wobbling seam hit the pitch and jagged sharply past Babar's inside edge and clipped the top of off stump. Babar bowed his head and walked off.
****
Before the start of this series, Babar had seen Cummins run in at him 208 times in Test cricket and not once did he need to leave the arena immediately after. From those 208 balls, he had scored 122 runs, hitting 15 boundaries. In those seven innings, Babar made scores 104, 97, 36, 36, 196, 67 and 55 on very good batting surfaces at the Gabba, Adelaide Oval, Rawalpindi, Karachi and Lahore.
For those who have had the misfortune of facing Cummins at any level of cricket, it was mind-blowing to watch the amount of time Babar had against one of the best fast bowlers ever. He propped forward time and again, particularly on the low, slow, lifeless pitches in Pakistan, and played Cummins with ease. Meeting good-length balls with the full face of the bat and placing them wherever he liked. The ball melted off the middle of the blade after it had come off the surface like it had bounced off a pillow. Even though the pitches were slow, Babar's skill was still exceptional. Few players in the world have made Cummins look so pedestrian, even in subcontinental conditions.
But facing Cummins on spicy pitches in Australia, particularly at Perth Stadium, and the new look MCG since curator Matt Page has breathed new life into its previously dull drop-ins, is a completely different beast.
Anyone who has faced Cummins on these types of pitches in Australia will attest to the fact that it is unlike anything else. You can face bowlers of similar size and stature and of similar or even quicker speed, but from Cummins, the ball comes down differently.
Elite batters programme their minds to pick length from the hand in an instant. What they see dictates whether they go forward or back, whether they leave or play, whether they attack or defend. The sheer volume of balls they face and their experience means the signal from the eyes to the brain can predict the length in an instant.
You know what a five-metre length looks like from the hand, and trust that you get forward and find the middle of the bat with a forward defence.
But that length from Cummins doesn't hit the middle of the bat. Because of his release point, the counter-rotation in his torso, the whip of his arm, and his partially amputated middle finger, the ball hits that length and climbs like it's bounced from a trampoline. Instead of hitting the middle of the bat, it hits the splice. The cane in the handle vibrates like a tuning fork. Defending the ball feels like you're jackhammering concrete.
That's what Babar experienced in the second innings in Perth. Cummins was relentless for 16 deliveries at him. Angling in from wide of the crease towards off stump and climbing from a length. Every ball Babar defended hit the sticker of the bat hard. Babar tried to prop forward to defend but ended up standing up from the crease. Cummins zipped in two bouncers to keep him guessing, one which took off past Babar's head and over Alex Carey's leaping glove to run away to the fence.
The 16th ball was angled into off with a wobbling seam, Babar had to defend on the front foot from the crease, it spat from a length and nipped away to clip the padding on the thumb of the bottom glove that was holding the handle and floated through to Carey. Babar had tried to hit the ball with the middle of his bat but the bounce was so severe that it made contact with his right thumb.
****
Babar walked out at 124 for 2 in Melbourne to face Cummins for the first time since that Perth dismissal. Masood and Abdullah Shafique had batted beautifully as the pitch looked to settle. But out of nowhere Cummins had forced Shafique into an error, claiming a stunning return catch.
Babar took guard out of his crease to try and negate Cummins' length and extra bounce. First ball, Cummins went back of a length at 137kph, fourth-stump line, Babar had to stand up on his toes and defend. Second ball, Cummins delivered the same length but on a fifth-stump line and Babar got squared up defending from the crease away from his body, wary of nicking off again.
Third ball, slightly fuller, fourth-stump line, finally Babar can properly press forward and cover the line to avoid getting an edge. It snaked through the gate. Death rattle.
"It's a dream ball. It's what you try most balls, but it's rare that it comes off," Cummins said after play. "That wasn't a deliberate ball to seam in. That's 50-50 that it's going to seam in or out. Try and create a bit of an angle and if I don't know what it's doing, hopefully the batter doesn't know either."
Babar didn't know. He's faced 40 balls from Cummins in this series so far and has been dismissed twice for 15 runs.
Pakistan slumped from 124 for 1 to 194 for 6 at stumps, trailing by 124. Cummins had taken 3 for 37 from 14 overs.