Mohammad Abbas maiden ten-wicket haul helped Pakistan register a massive win over Australia and win the series by 1-0 at Sheikh Zayed Stadium in Abu Dhabi. Pakistan clinched the two match Test series after winning the match by 373 runs. For Australia, it was their fourth-worst defeat ever in history. In the second innings, Pakistan bowled out Australia for 164 runs with star bowler Abass claiming another brilliant five-wicket haul.
Not only that, as Sarfraz won his first series in the UAE as skipper, Abbas became the first Pakistani pace bowler to get a ten-wicket haul.
After getting outplayed by Pakistan in all facets, Australia captain Tim Paine felt that it was Pakistan’s batting performance in the first innings that complimented the fiery bowling performance attack lead by Mohammad Abbas; unfortunately Australia couldn’t deliver well under pressure with wickets falling consistently.
"Obviously really disappointing to have them 5 for 57 on day one and we let that opportunity slip. When you do that against really good teams in Test cricket you pay the price and I thought they batted really well after that in the first innings, put us under pressure and we weren't up to the challenge with the bat."
"I thought our bowlers toiled pretty well on that wicket. To bowl them out twice was not a bad effort. It's just our batting. Mohammad Abbas challenged our defence time and time again and as we've seen a number of times over the last couple of years we've come up short. There's certainly no sugar coating that we've got some real issues with our batting and we need to address it really quickly."
Australia were 155-7 at lunch on the fourth day as 28-year-old Abbas followed up his first innings figures of 5-33 with 4-56.
Australia's batsmen had no answers to his accurate seam bowling under cloudy conditions.
At the break Marnus Labuschagne was unbeaten on 43 runs and Nathan Lyon not out without scoring, meaning Pakistan need another two wickets to win the match and the two-match series.