Pakistan could, by now, be within a whisker of winning this Boxing Day Test, but another shocking dropped catch slammed the brakes on the tourist’s momentum as Australia established a 241-run lead at the close.

Steve Smith and Mitch Marsh powered Australia back into a strong position, but they had to do it after a shocking collapse from the top order.

• As it happened: Check out our wrap and live blog of the day’s play
• Scorecard: Check out all the stats in our ScoreCentre

Here are five quick hits from day three at the MCG.

1. The captain of the A-Team

Test match bowlers spend hours, years really, trying to pull off traps and tricks.

Whether it’s three out-swingers followed by the one that comes back in, the surprise yorker, or a well disguised wrong’un … bowlers are constantly trying to draw the batter into doing what they want them to do.

That goes double when a team’s captain is the bowler in question, because he’s bearing total responsibility for the state of the match.

You only need to hear Pat Cummins talk about trapping Joe Root LBW in the 2017/18 Ashes to know he’s the Hannibal of Australia’s A-Team. He loves it when a plan comes together.

And so it went when, after Muhammad Rizwan clattered a series of drives through the cover-point region, Cummins placed David Warner in that region, in addition to the ever-present Nathan Lyon.

Then, when Rizwan drilled the first ball of the over directly into Warner’s guts.

“Just flukey, it never happens like that,” Cummins said at lunch.

It does for him.

The danger man was gone and the Aussies came together, seemingly scarcely believing how quickly and perfectly the plan had come off.

2. Pat delivers another MCG five-fa

What more is there to say about Pat Cummins?

With Australia slightly under pressure and Pakistan threatening to edge too close to comfort to that first innings score, Cummins again put the team on his back to power through to his 10th Test five wicket haul. 

The superb captaincy decision to help dismiss Muhammad Rizwan was exceptional, but the off cutter to clip the top of Hassan Ali’s stump was simply stunning bowling, highlighting his metronomic line and length.

It was Cummins’s fifth five-fa in his time as skipper of the team, his third at the MCG and came after 20 overs of mesmeric bowling in which he was the most economical of all the Australian attack.

We have so often heard of captains knocks when it comes to performances by leaders in Test cricket history.

Pat Cummins is making sure a skipper’s haul is becoming part of the vernacular.

3. Australia’s top order crumbles

Having been bowled out, Pakistan had engineered a tough little three-over period for the Australian openers to negotiate just before lunch.

The lights were on, the clouds were in and Pakistan was in a positive frame of mind.

It took just two balls for Shaheen Shah Afridi to strike, enticing a thin edge from Usman Khawaja who departed for a duck.

That would have been enough to class the “session” a success for Pakistan, but Shaheen struck again with the 18th and final ball before lunch, finding the edge of Marnus Labuschagne down the leg side to leave Australia reeling at 2-6.

Things didn’t get any better after lunch, with David Warner chopping on the first ball of the third over — the requisite nothing ball getting a wicket in a collapse — before Mir Hamza found himself on a hat-trick after hooping an in-swinger through the gate and into the stumps of Travis Head.

Mitch Marsh survived the hat-trick ball, but at 4-16 with a lead of just 70, Australia was in deep water and looking for some floaties.

4. Can you press ‘ump’, please?

Test cricket is criticised for a lot of silly and strange delays, but the seven-minute post-lunch pause would have to be one of the weirdest we’ve seen.

With the day already having started 45 minutes late due to morning rain, we lost a few minutes to start the second session because third umpire Richard Illingworth was stuck in an elevator.

The umpirical line of succession meant reserve umpire Phil Gillespie was playing the role of designated survivor down on the ground and had to sprint up the MCG stairs to take Illingworth’s place and allow play to get underway.

Illingworth took his place in the hot seat two minutes later, but it’s fair to say, in a Test all about heart health, the former England bowler will be getting his steps in and taking the stairs for the rest of the match.

5. Catching calamity costs Pakistan dear

Oh, Abdullah Shafique.

At drinks in the middle session, Pakistan had Australia right where they wanted them.