Australia triumph in twilight thriller

A Test recall that threatened little but despair for Shaun Marsh ended in historic celebration tonight as he overcame his day-before demons and the pink ball to carry his team to victory in the inaugural day-night Test match.

Marsh, whose much debated career has often swung from high to low but rarely been viewed as bereft of the necessary talent, triumphed amid both of Test cricket’s newest innovations – the lacquered ball and artificial lights – to post an invaluable if not quite unforgettable 49.

In doing so, the 32-year-old provided the mainstay of an Australia innings that teetered several times in search of their modest requirement before securing a three-wicket victory to clinch the Trans-Tasman Series.

It also helped to expunge from his memory, and perhaps also from public consciousness, the painful run out that cost the left-hander his wicket by his own hand when he had scored only two on the Test’s second day and which – in the mind of some – put his latest Test recall at imminent risk.

Which his familiar dismissal, edging to slip a ball that curved away from his angled bat, would doubtless have made even more precarious if Australia had not been safely within 11 runs of victory at the time.

And which Peters Nevill and Siddle achieved, despite the wicketkeeper losing his wicket to a great catch off the inside edge by his counterpart.

WATCH: Watling's classic to remove Nevill

Whether Marsh’s 117-ball knock over two and a half hours will prove impetus for the belated career output the unarguably gifted batsman has for so long threatened will be decided in the Tests that follow.

But he can claim a moment of history, leading his team to victory in the historic first day-night Test even if he wasn’t at the crease when Siddle eventually found the winning runs at 8.46pm beneath a star-dotted ebony sky.

Under traditional Test conditions and expectations, the 187 that Australia sought for victory on a pitch barely two and half days old and weather devoid of cloud or wind would scarcely have raised a pulse.

After all, the last time a team found itself unable to overhaul a final innings target of such visible magnitude at the venue was the occasion that still causes Allan Border to visibly flinch – Australia’s one-run loss to the West Indies in 1993 chasing 186.

Also the most recent occasion on which an Adelaide Oval Test had failed to yield a batting century.

And despite their lofty world rankings, the Black Caps’ strike bowling pair of Tim Southee and Trent Boult (along with seamer Doug Bracewell) would hardly compare themselves to Curtly Ambrose, Courtney Walsh, Ian Bishop and Kenny Benjamin who orchestrated that famous result almost 23 years ago.

WATCH: Boult keeps Kiwis in the hunt

But the variables that have come to play in the day-night format – a pitch with more gratuitous grass than the 1970s and a ball with the same propensity to swing as those liberal days – made today’s pursuit more than a little precarious.

Only becoming more fraught as Australia lost their top three batsmen while the sun still shone, and a couple more as the margin narrowed during the twilight zone.

Such has been the trepidation about batting in the gloaming, Australia began their bid for a two-nil series win with a palpable skittishness that suggested they wanted to be tucked up in celebrations by the time the sun slipped behind the Sir Donald Bradman Pavilion.

Where most of the party set had been doing so for a bulk of the Test.

The haste to get the runs despite the game not having reached its midway point when the fourth innings began saw David Warner scoring at a run per ball – twice the rate that both teams had managed across the first two and a bit days of pink ball cricket.

The dismissal of Warner’s opening partner Joe Burns in the sixth over only briefly gave rise to circumspection, and while Smith battled to find rhythm and stability during an unusually unsettled spell at the crease, Warner looked to be the guy who would take finally the Test away from NZ.

As was the case a day earlier, the game then looked to have turned on a glaring error when Mitchell Santner’s creditable Test debut turned forgettable in the time it takes to spill a fly ball when looking into the setting sun.

Gifting the other team’s skipper a reprieve with his fumble, when Smith had just two runs to his name.

WATCH: Santner shocker spares Smith

The result looked inevitable when Australia’s team leaders and most accomplished batsmen immediately celebrated by taking 16 runs from the next seven balls in a flurry of boundaries that all but quelled the final breath of breeze from the Black Caps’ sails.

But Warner’s edge to slip off Bracewell in the over after he had seen Smith’s wicket go begging, then a line-ball lbw against Smith that partially restored the umpiring equilibrium lost the day before  brought the game back to an even keel.

Until Marsh shored up his Test berth for at least another match with a nerveless knock.

In truth, it was a credit to the indefatigable Black Caps that they pushed their hosts so close to the line after the top half of their batting crucially faltered under the floodlights on Saturday evening.

As former skipper Ross Taylor had explained in the wake of that collapse, that saw the top half of their line-up removed for less than 100, New Zealand’s aspiration heading into the third day was two-fold.

Resuming at 5-116 and holding a skinny lead of 94, the Black Caps were eyeing a significant sixth-wicket partnership between allrounder Santner in his maiden Test, and wicketkeeper BJ Watling who boasts a highest Test score of 142no.

To push the lead somewhere near 250, which would have sent a shiver of trepidation through an Australia dressing room given that the wickets to have fallen thus far in the Test had come at a cost of just over 20 runs apiece.

But of equal or greater consequence was the time that ticked by as those runs were compiled.

WATCH: Black Caps bowled out for 208 in second dig

To more than double their overnight score would have chewed up the best part of two sessions, which would have pushed the start of the Australia run chase to somewhere near the point the floodlights are turned on and the ball becomes as unpredictable as a sleep-deprived infant.

That aspiration was subject to hasty revision within an over and a half of the day-night getting underway, when Watling ended an unproductive series with the bat by flashing anxiously at Hazlewood and Smith – who had turfed two chances on Saturday night – held the chance.

Suddenly, the tantalising lure of a challenging pursuit that Australia would be forced to begin amid the most trying conditions to bat was looking like a canter to a target of less than 150.

WATCH: Marsh Voges steady ship in day three's second session

Which was likely to be realised before the unique element of the day-night concept ticked over.

But Santner, who despite being the least experience Test cricketer in the match knew that his exposure to the day-night format was no more or less than any of his teammates or opponents, stepped up to play an innings of substance.

With only the three seamers (none of whom boast a Test batting average close to 20) to provide moral and practical support, the 23-year-old showed anything but apprehension.

Indeed, it was the antithesis of timidity – a surge of bravado – that cost Santner his wicket after he had come within a hefty blow of a maiden Test half-century by jumping down the pitch to Nathan Lyon and clubbing him over wide long-on for six.

With every run viewed as meaningful and half a dozen from a single blow tantamount to an early Christmas bonus, Lyon nodded ruefully down the pitch to his callow adversary (a full five years Lyon's junior) as if daring him to try it again.

Two balls later Santner did precisely that, charging from his crease to find the wily spinner had pushed the ball wider of the stumps, harder into the pitch and with extra overspin.

WATCH: Nifty Nev collects maiden Test stumping

Which saw it grip, spin and bounce past Santner’s searching bat and flailing body that had jack-knifed on to the pitch as Nevill completed the stumping.

From there, it was simply a question of which of the remaining Black Caps would perish first in the traditional manner of the tailender.

Southee won that battle, holing out to deep backward square, followed closely by Boult who cleared his front leg, exposed all three stumps and seemed unsurprised when Hazlewood hit two of them.

It completed a triumphant return for man of the match Hazlewood who had assumed the leadership of the attack following the retirement of Mitchell Johnson and the hobbling of Mitchell Starc in consecutive innings.

WATCH: Bendemeer Bullet's super six wickets

His 6-70 was more than a career-best in a Test match that saw him crest the first of what is expected to be a brace of milestones over coming years – his 50th Test wicket.

It was his first five-wicket haul since his debut Test matches at home (in Brisbane against India last summer) and away (against the West Indies in Dominica last June), and signalled a return to the form and menace that had so mysteriously deserted him during the Ashes series mid-year.

Which is crucial heading into the upcoming three-Test Commonwealth Bank Series against the West Indies that begins in Hobart next week, given he is the last of Australia’s first-choice pace bowlers of the current summer left standing.