Turning out to play on Saturday couldn’t have been easy.
It might have been the last thing some of the Australians wanted to do with the tragic, sudden loss of Shane Warne weighing heavily.
The players wore black armbands and a minute’s silence was observed before play — but the show had to go on.
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What followed was akin to torture for Australia.
Pakistan batted Australia deeper and deeper into the ground. The wicket was lifeless. Chances few and far between.
Cricket commentator and writer Geoff Lemon said given the match circumstances, combined with the emotional toll of Warne’s loss, it was Australia’s toughest day in the field since the ill-fated 2018 tour of South Africa.
“(I) reckon Australia’s facing their toughest day on the field since day three at Jo’burg in 2018,” he tweeted as Azhar Ali and Imam-ul-Haq resumed their unbreakable stand.
“Emotional, shaken, approaching 300 for one wicket on a deck as flat as they come.”
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The easier thing to do would have been to drop heads in the field, but one stunning moment proved that that was never an option.
It was a moment Warne would have been proud of.
After 150 overs in the field, and with Pakistan at 2-414, Babar Azam tried to take a run on the arm of Marnus Labuschagne, who sharply collected the ball with one hand and threw down the stumps at the non-striker’s end with little more than a stump to aim at.
He went wild in celebration, fist pumping and shouting, and rallying his troops in a way few teams who have conceded more than 400 runs for three wickets ever have.
Of course, Warne could never move across the ground like Labuschagne.
But there was something in the never-say-die attitude, and the ability to produce a moment of sheer individual brilliance when his team needed it most, that was reminiscent of the late great.