One thing that lasts longer than Australian heartbreak is Pakistani belief. And day four captured that perfectly
\nIslamabad
\nThe chant goes up, loud and proud, in the Shane Warne Stand, where a group of Pakistan fans have congregated. It\u2019s a relatively small crowd – fewer than 20,000 come through the turnstiles all day – but here in this little corner, the flags you see do not bear the Blue Ensign, but the green and white of the star and crescent.
\nAsif leads the chants, his three-year-old son clinging to his leg. His father, Asif says, was at the SCG in 1995 when Pakistan last beat Australia in a Test match in this country, and while he won\u2019t have the chance to be in Sydney next week, this might just be his – and Pakistan\u2019s – moment.
\nIt\u2019s early evening, shortly after the tea break, and it\u2019s not the most optimistic time to have this chat. Josh Hazlewood has just bowled what appears to be a match-turning spell, sending down 24 successive dots before rattling Babar\u2019s off stump. Saud Shakeel fell to Mitchell Starc shortly after, and it\u2019s suddenly all down to Mohammad Rizwan and Salman Ali Agha, with 155 runs standing between them and the summit.
\nBut Asif hopes. Hope is the last thing you lose. \u201cPakistan!,\u201d he yells again. \u201cZINDABAD!!!,\u201d they cry back.
\nIt\u2019s impossible to describe what a historic Test match smells like, but anyone who has woken up on that decisive morning will know. It\u2019s that final morning in Karachi in March 2022, that day in Brisbane in 2021 or 2016. As the train pulls up at Jolimont Station, the walk across the bridge and through Yarra Park is sensory overload. The MCG, visible in all its glory, may just be about to see another strand of history woven through it. There are few more intoxicating feelings than a simmering Test match that has come to a boil.
\nPakistan already have regrets because Australia are 241 ahead, perhaps too far in front already. That, certainly, was Mitchell Marsh\u2019s view, whose 96 put them in that imperious position, after he was put down by Abdullah Shafique in a slip cordon he didn\u2019t belong in 76 runs earlier. But Pakistan believe they have found a way to survive, in the cricketing wasteland that Australia is to visiting sides, Pakistan have stayed in the bunker just long enough; willing to wound, and yet, until now, afraid to strike.
\nPakistan do strike in the morning, but perhaps not quite soon enough. The final few partnerships added 22, 28, 12, and 13. Shaheen Afridi is the first to strike, drawing an edge from Mitchell Starc. This time, the man who should have been there all along dives low to take an excellent catch. Babar has given Pakistan the breakthrough. How, you feel, they\u2019ll need him today.
\nMeanwhile, Shahid Afridi has rocked up to the MCG, declaring he believes the target is chaseable. He can\u2019t know what that target is, because Australia are still batting, but it would be unlike Shahid to consider that. He is flanked by Pakistan squash legend Jahangir Khan, who knows a thing or two about winning streaks.
\nShan Masood and Babar are out there together. Six weeks ago, they were both in Lahore on a very different kind of day. Babar had just been told he was being done away with as white-ball captain and could see where he wasn\u2019t wanted, resigning from the Test captaincy, too. Masood was there to be anointed his successor, and while the pair have never exactly been best of friends, what they\u2019re doing right now is too important to let anything as trivial as that get in their way.
\nImam-ul-Haq looked like a dead man walking from the moment he stepped out, but it was Shafique who fell first, perhaps fittingly, by edging to the slips. It was a sharp catch at third slip, but, unlike Pakistan, Australia have their cordon worked out to a tee, and Usman Khawaja did not err. Pat Cummins worked Imam over before trapping him in front shortly after.
\nBut, while any mention of Masood and Babar in the same sentence only highlighted the dysfunctional nature of Pakistan cricket until a little while ago, the captain and his predecessor are ticking together like clockwork. Shan takes the lead, as he needs to, building on his first innings-half-century with a knock that carries the promise of something even more substantial. He lifts the scoring rate, moving onto the front foot early and anticipating the short ball, too. The bounce doesn\u2019t appear to trouble him, and he manages to steer Hazlewood and Starc into gaps. Babar, meanwhile, hangs back, more cautious but equally assured, aware that if Pakistan are to make a fist of it, they are unlikely to do it without him.
\nThe partnership crosses 50, the total passes 100, and the belief rises once more.
\nThen, the dagger. Anytime Australia\u2019s bowlers have come up short, Cummins has limbered up to the mark. He comes around the wicket to Masood, and it takes him just three balls to find the perfect delivery. It\u2019s on off stump, wobbling away, and Masood defends with hard hands. On the second day, a similar nick dropped an inch short of Khawaja, but Steve Smith takes a sharp catch. Hazlewood\u2019s spell has seen Babar off, and though Babar\u2019s not in the best form, that doesn\u2019t tell the story of how metronomically accurate Australia have been to him. He protected the inside edge twice in Perth, only to nick off. Here, he covers the outside edge, and Hazlewood, like Cummins before him, manages to sneak past his defences on the inside.
\nBut while Australia sniff a four-day victory, Rizwan and Agha seem to be up to something. Rizwan is doing that jittery thing where he never looks settled while playing the most confident, low-percentage shots on both sides. That swivel-pull off the ribs to Cummins is a sign of the kind of mood he\u2019s in, while Agha won\u2019t be left behind. The ball after he\u2019s pelted on the helmet and a lengthy concussion protocol follows, he whips his liquid wrists to dispatch him to third man. An edge off Hazlewood flies away for four more, while a wristy offside flick from Rizwan clears the slips and dashes down.
\nIt is that stage of a Test match where all roads lead to an epic finish. The Australian fans still outnumber the Pakistanis, but it is the support for the visiting side that truly appreciates the magnitude of what they might be witnessing. Pakistan\u2019s target is now below a hundred, and they have half the side still to come in. This is a generational opportunity – like Hobart 1999, Sydney 2010, and Brisbane 2016. But this is happening now, and in the moment, it feels different.
\nThe MCG scorecard flashes up the \u2018top five chases at this ground.\u2019 The only one above 300 came 95 years ago, and just one of the top five features a game that took place after Pakistan became a country – a South African chase of 297 in 1953. But while history says don\u2019t hope on this side of the grave, Pakistan prefer the concluding line of that famous Seamus Heaney stanza. They believe hope and history are about to rhyme.
\nRizwan glances up at the scoreboard before he takes guard for the next ball. Cummins has once more brought himself on to squash this last rebellion from Pakistan and to that end, he bowls the cricketing equivalent of a body serve, one that\u2019s lined up on middle and continues to rise while still being low enough to make ducking impossible.
\nRizwan gets out of the way, arching his body back and keeping his bat out of the way. But that\u2019s not what Australia see, and when Michael Gough doesn\u2019t agree with them, up it goes to the TV screen. Rizwan points repeatedly at a mark on his forearm to indicate where the impact was made, but the technology shows a spike, as well as a mark on his wristband.
\n24 years ago, the lack of similar technology denied Pakistan a certain win against Australia. It was a clicky bat handle then, a kissed wristband now, and it\u2019s all the same to Pakistan.
\nAs Rizwan walks off, still gesticulating furiously, Pakistan\u2019s fighting spirit goes up in smoke too. The next 39 balls are a blur from the same repetition, the one of crushed dreams and the sickening knowledge that it ends the same. It will always end the same way.
\nBy the time the final wicket has fallen, the bright sunshine of the early evening gives way to the evening clouds. But few of those supporters in that Warne stand are there to see it. There seems little point when they\u2019ve seen it all before. The Southern Cross is everywhere once more, the star and crescent folded away.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
One thing that lasts longer than Australian heartbreak is Pakistani belief. And day four captured that perfectly Islamabad The chant goes up, loud and proud, in the Shane Warne Stand, where a group of Pakistan fans have congregated. It\u2019s a relatively small crowd – fewer than 20,000 come through the turnstiles all day – but […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":377867,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-377855","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports"},"yoast_head":"\n