Pakistan tearaway Mohammad Amir has delivered a 12-ball spell that will send shivers down the spines of Australian batsman.
The 24-year-old quick ripped through the inexperienced Cricket Australia XI on Thursday night to leave them for 4-3 at stumps on day one, but his deliveries would have knocked over any world-class batsman.
Easily Pakistan’s finest exponent of swing bowling since Wasim Akram, more than a decade ago, left-armer Amir bowled full and at a pace under lights, tailing the ball back in late, to pick up three quick wickets and send a message to the Australian camp.
“It is (exciting),” Pakistan veteran Younis Khan said.
“If he gets wickets for us like that, it will be a good competition.”
That could be the understatement to end all understatements.
He twice clean bowled Australian youngsters and trapped another plumb lbw – two of the wickets falling on the first two balls of the innings, as he opened with a double-wicket maiden.
Amir first shot to prominence as a 17-year-old on Pakistan’s tour of Australia in 2009-10, claiming a five-wicket haul during the Boxing Day Test in Melbourne.
He later served time for spot-fixing in 2010, both in the way of a five-year ban from cricket and three months inside a jail cell.
And since returning to Test cricket in July, he’s bowled like a man making up for lost time.
He’s taken 25 wickets in eight Test matches, a figure that would be much higher if not for the 11 dropped catches that have come off his bowling.
And on Thursday night, after Pakistan themselves were rolled for 208, he showed he could be the perfect exploiter of the pink ball under lights with high levels of humidity predicted ahead of next week’s series opening Brisbane Test.
“It’s not easy when you’re facing Mohammad Amir and Rahat Ali,” Khan said.
“As the lights come on there is a little bit more seam and a little bit more swing comes in.”
A lesson Australia’s batsmen – who are renowned for struggling against the moving ball – might fear they will learn all too soon in Brisbane.
