Australia 88 & 349 (Clarke 77, Smith 77, Ponting 66, Amir 4/86) Vs Pakistan 258 & 3/140 (Farhat 67, Ali 47*, Bollinger 2/47)

Half an hour before the close of play, Pakistan were cruising to victory in a very un-Pakistani way against Australia’s largely lifeless bowling line up.  Imran Farhat and Ahzar Ali – in just his second test – put on a water tight partnership of 110 to ease Pakistan concerns of any potential calamitous collapses.  It was inspired batting from both men, but they were troubled little by the largely pathetic performance of the Australian bowlers.  While Ben Hilfenhaus and Steve Smith kept it tight, Bollinger and Johnson leaked runs and bowled terrible early on.  And even the great Shane Watson struggled to look dangerous.

Then Imran Farhat was bowled from a Douggie Bollinger yorker and soon after Douggie had Umar Amin caught behind for a duck.   Suddenly the joyous Sunday afternoon ride had a flat tire.  The light seemed darker, Bollinger got very hard to play, Smith was on the spot, and Pakistan showed just the slightest hint of panic.  They decided – even after the light got very bright – that it was all too much for them, and that they didn’t want the extra half an our to finish the game tonight, they decided to come back tomorrow and try then.  They’ll be hoping the clouds don’t come in for the morning.

While Australia struggled with the ball, with the bat they showed amazing fight and grit.  With Ponting departing early, followed oh so quickly by Hussey and North, they were five wickets down before drinks.  That they lasted to tea time tells you how much they grafted and worked.  Clarke went on to get 77 before giving his wicket away straight after lunch and then it was down to the tail.

Much had been made of Steve Smith’s batting before this series, but in this first three innings he had looked scratchy.  In this innings he had small partnerships with Paine, Johnson, Hilfenhaus and then Bollinger, but he was the star.  Smith is such a confident young player.  He will stand out of his crease and dare a fielder to throw at the stumps, charge down the wicket at the spinner early on, loves to hit the ball in odd ways, is constantly talking to anyone who’ll talk back and loves to hit the ball in the air.  When Paine went out – cutting a dreadful half tracker half heartedly to cover – Smith completely took over.

At one stage it seemed he was scoring only in fours and singles, and Pakistan had no answer.  Salman Butt completely lost control of the situation.  Smith was smashing the ball over cover and looking to go through midwicket, yet Butt had fielders out everywhere else.  Once he even forgot to bring in the sweepers for the last ball of the over when Smith was batting with Bollinger, Smith picked up the single.  It was aggressive, calm and intelligent batting, but most importantly he looked like he belonged higher up the order. The highlight was his back to back sixes off Danish Kaneria, one of which got stuck on the Football Stand roof

Eventually Smith’s savage and sassy 77 was ended. Pakistan found themselves needing 180, four more runs than they did in their calamitous loss in Sydney.  This time they would chase it against a horribly out of form Australian bowling attack and Pakistani destroyer Shane Watson.  Ponting started with his normal opening bowlers Bollinger and Hilfenhaus.  Bollinger was all over the place, bowling no balls, given away boundaries, bowling horrible deliveries and going for 23 runs in his first 3 overs.  Perhaps he would have been taken off, but amongst the stinky filth was a ball that took the edge of Imran Farhat, only for Shane Watson to drop it.

In the field Ponting was positively hyperactive.  He gave up his spot at second slip to field at mid off, and then moved the field around almost every ball.  I’ve never seen him so keen to move the field. To start with there were three sweepers, and then he had none, not even a fine leg.  He was also playing Russian Roulette with the slips, and it was dizzying just trying to catch up.  He took out second slip so that Hilfenhaus was bowling with one slip, and next ball the ball went to the one remaining slip.  It was lucky for Australia, but the luck stopped there.

Today might also be Marcus North’s last shot in test cricket.  If it was, he won’t look back fondly at the attempted forcing push on the off side that he dragged back onto his stumps.  The ball wasn’t special, it didn’t move much, the bounce was predictable, and it wasn’t bowled at express pace.  North just played the wrong shot early in his innings, again.  His last 10 tests have him averaging 30 and with one century against a poor New Zealand attack.  His six wickets were a lovely bonus for Australia, but with Smith showing that test cricket doesn’t faze him; it will be almost impossible for North to hold onto his position. North didn’t even bowl in Pakistan’s innings, even though he took six wickets in the second innings at Lord’s.

Pakistan need 40 runs to close out the match tomorrow with seven wickets in hand.  It sounds like such an easy chase.  However, Pakistan haven’t beaten Australia in 15 years, and while this looks like a formality, there is no other team better equipped to balls it up from here than Pakistan.

Jarrod can usually be found at cricketwithballs.