Alex Carey’s biggest fall came earlier in the week, when he fell into the swimming pool in the Australian team’s Karachi hotel.
Perfectly captured on an iPhone and, even more hilariously, on CCTV, Carey wasn’t paying attention to his footing as he gazed around his new digs for the week, resulting in a viral contender for Funniest Home Videos.
But when he fell seven runs short of a maiden Test hundred at the NSK, it wasn’t for lack of awareness or a little absentmindedness.
Carey attempted to slog sweep Babar Azam in the fading light of the second day, but the ball stayed low and skidded under his bat into the off stump; such an event is more common that walking into a pool.
Carey had swept all through his innings, as he is prone to when facing spin in Australia, but even the most spin-friendly pitch in Australia - Carey’s home ground in Adelaide - is a different proposition to the sub-continent.
Carey had watched Usman Khawaja’s majestic 160 over the best part of two days, observing the pace and patience of his innings and realising it could be the model of his own batting with so much subcontinental Test cricket on the cards for Australia over the next 12 months.
“The way that he played was fantastic,” said Carey. “He just has one gear basically throughout and he sticks to that.
“So I took a fair bit of, I don’t know if inspiration is the right word, but I’ve spoken to him a lot the past couple of weeks and he's batting beautifully.”
“So I just sort of, you know, stuck to my patience out there. Obviously my dismissal was probably otherwise but I came back into the rooms and a lot of the guys said they’d play the same shot.
“I don't know if that's comfort or not, but I'll take the confidence out of that.
“There is still three days of hard cricket to come, there's another game in Lahore, so I want to continue to improve on my game but I guess it’s a little step in the right direction.”
Pat Cummins declined to declare when Carey was out and, while some may have expected Australia to go harder in the last session, Carey said their game plan was clear; to bank runs in the first innings when they may be harder to come by if the pitch crumbles, and soak up the best batting conditions of the match.
“Think we were pretty clear going into last night, the captain basically said to the batters to come, get your head around batting all day unless the message comes otherwise,” Carey said. “[Mitchell Starc] and I were just batting along, it’s not the easiest wicket to score quickly on, I know that might sound interesting, but it’s starting to be a little bit variable, inconsistent, there was reverse swing at times throughout the day.
“But I think the wicket is starting to show a little bit of life now, or the opposite, it’s inconsistent, some patches are starting to open up a little.
“I think the game will move quicker going into the back end of tomorrow and day four and day five.”
While spin is expected to play a greater role as the match wears on, Carey expects the fast bowlers may be an even greater handful if the ball starts reversing.
“Reverse swing is always difficult, I guess, coming over from Australia we probably don’t experience those conditions a lot but obviously the home team will have an advantage,” said Carey. “I think the beauty of having Mitchell Starc in our side, 145 clicks with reverse swing is going to be difficult, Pat Cummins is the same and also [Cameron Green].
“We’ve got some weapons there when the ball starts to reverse to hopefully utilize that.
“And then just super excited to see the two spinners, Nath hits a beautiful area regularly, there’s footmarks there, although they aren’t huge at the moment, think our quicks will open those up a little more with the way they hit the crease and where they land on the wicket.
“Then Mitchell Swepson is the other one, I think there’s enough there from the end he’ll bowl at, there’s some cracks opening.
“It’s all going to be difficult.”
