Khawaja sets up Aussie charge as tense finale awaits

Following forecasts Australia's long-awaited return to Pakistan would bring "grinding" games in which hanging on for a draw might prove as valuable as a win, a contest that has raged 14 days without a result hangs on tomorrow's final act.

With each team rightfully and respectively claiming moral victories in the two drawn matches in Rawalpindi and Karachi, all four outcomes are feasible tomorrow with Pakistan resuming 278 runs shy of their 351-run target with all 10 wickets and a minimum 90 overs remaining.

While the history written before Tests at Gadaffi Stadium went into hiatus in 2009 suggests the visitors remain favourites, their more recent inability to bowl out opponents on day five – four times in their past nine Tests – will play on their minds if wickets remain hard to find tomorrow.

Three of those occasions – against both India and England at the SCG, and Pakistan in Karachi – yielded draws, while the fourth brought a win for India who chased down 329 for the loss of seven wickets to snare a series win at the Gabba.

Then there was another hot chance that flew past the outstretched left hand of Steve Smith off the day's penultimate delivery when Abdullah Shafique aimed a big drive at Marnus Labuschagne, stirring memories of the three equally tough chances that fizzed past Smith in the first innings.

Pakistan will take further belief from their heroics in the second Test where they endured almost 172 overs across two days to secure a stalemate, and tonight's unbeaten opening stand of 73 off 27 overs between Shafique (27no) and Imam ul Haq (42no) helped quell anxieties after yesterday's batting disaster.

If they pull off a win to take the newly minted Benaud-Qadir Trophy it will require almost double the previous highest successful fourth innings run chase at Gaddafi Stadium, which currently remains England's 5-209 in the opening match of their 1961 campaign.

And even to salvage another stoic draw, Babar Azam's men will need to have survived a minimum of 121 overs, which would set a new benchmark for a fourth innings at the ground.

To date, the longest (in balls faced) occupation in the final phase is Pakistan's 4-316 off 107 overs to defy South Africa in the most recently completed Test at the venue in 2007, when Younis Khan batted almost six hours to score 130.

The Lahore pitch remains rock hard and despite four days of heavy foot traffic – some of which was closely policed when Australia batted today – appears to have degraded more into dust than yawning divots with the predicted low bounce making irregular appearances.

And while day four proved another of those "grinding" battles Australia skipper Pat Cummins foreshadowed before leaving Melbourne last month, his bowlers know from yesterday's carnage the game can turn in the course of an hour if incursions are made and the ball misbehaves.

If Pakistan are to create history and heroes, they will rely on their openers plus Azhar Ali and Babar, who are also the four highest runs scorers of the series behind Usman Khawaja, who crowned a most memorable homecoming with another unbeaten century in his final innings of the trip.

Australia also clearly didn't learn from their wasteful deployment of DRS in the first innings when they tubed all three with dubious reviews, and burned another one in the eighth over today when they failed to detect an inside edge when Nathan Lyon pleaded for lbw against Imam (on 9).

Their opponents showed how it's done when Shafique (on 13) was adjudged caught behind off Lyon eight overs later, but was reinstated when his query showed clear air between bat and ball.

Before Pakistan's brave start to their distant target, the day's major discussion point was precisely when Cummins would call a halt to Australia's innings as the catastrophic collapse of Wednesday evening when the hosts lost 8-54 seemingly rendered them deflated and frustrated when they took the field today.

By contrast, Australia extended their lead at the rate of almost four runs an over, with the only concern along the well being how well the pitch continued to play after the clatter of wickets last night suggested it had become a minefield.

The declaration came four overs after tea, which allowed a couple of Australia batters to secure significant milestones.

In completing his second century upon his first Test tour of the country of his birth, Khawaja installed himself as the first Australia men's player to complete a series on the subcontinent (minimum five innings) with an average in excess of 150 (496 runs at 165.33).

Only former West Indies captain Jimmy Adams can boast a better average (173.3) during his remarkable India visit in 1994.

And just two other Australians have bettered Khawaja's aggregate in a three-match series in Asia – fellow left-handed openers Matthew Hayden (549) in his Indian summer of 2001, and Mark Taylor (513) on the team's previous campaign in Pakistan in 1998 where he piled on 334 in a single innings.

Moments before the 35-year-old completed his fourth ton since being recalled to the Test outfit in January, Smith entered a similarly exclusive club by becoming the 33rd men's player to reach 8,000 runs in Tests.

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That the ex-captain crested that mountain courtesy of a sweetly timed drive to the cover boundary seemed exquisitely apt, creating history by getting there faster than any of his illustrious predecessors.

And while his 151 innings to reach the accolade was just one fewer than the previous holder – ex-Sri Lanka skipper Kumar Sangakkara – it's a remarkable 13 innings fewer than the next-quickest of the six other Australians to get there, Matthew Hayden.

Smith hasn't enjoyed the same productivity Khawaja has enjoyed on Pakistan's unresponsive pitches and was dismissed for 17 today as Australia pushed for quick runs, the same haste that saw Labuschagne hole out for 36 to his undisguised displeasure.

But from the outset, Australia's approach to the penultimate day of a tour that had delivered much goodwill but no results was as obvious as it was bold.

David Warner helped himself to three boundaries and another round of baiting during Shaheen Shah Afridi's first over of the morning, continuing on from the toe-to-toe (albeit good-natured) confrontation the pair had exchanged the previous evening.

As he had done to the final delivery of day three, Warner began by fending Shaheen down the pitch and feigning a quick single before bellowing 'no run' at which point the bowler retrieved the ball and shaped to hurl it towards Warner, who had recovered his ground and aimed his backside at his rival.

But the bonhomie in which this patience-taxing series has been played threatened to evaporate shortly before lunch when umpires Aleem Dar and Ahsan Raza took issue with the Warner's repeated presence on the pitch's danger area in front of his stumps.

In warning the veteran opener about his habit of taking a step or two forward after playing a stroke, and while batting half a metre beyond the crease line, the officials were clearly concerned about the potential for additional footmarks in a place Australia's bowlers would be looking to land the ball.

In his defence, Warner suggested it was wholly unreasonable to expect him to magically levitate to the pitch's edge upon completing the stroke and the discussion soon grew to include Khawaja (who appeared to be engaged in some Urdu translating) as well as half the Pakistan team.

However, any frustration the hosts might have been feeling with Australia's opening pair might have been better directed at their own profligacy as the wheels that had wobbled loose as Pakistan surrendered 7-20 the previous evening came completely adrift this morning.

To start, there was the failure to lodge so much as a polite query – let alone a call to review – when Warner (on 16) pushed outside off stump against Hasan Ali with vision replayed during the next over revealing the left-hander had feathered a faint edge as the ball passed into keeper Mohammad Rizwan's gloves.

While Pakistan can point to the absence of close catchers who might have heard the noise as mitigation, they couldn't similarly cite crowd noise given the festivities of yesterday's national holiday had been replaced by an almost funereal silence among the scattering of spectators.

Ten overs later, it was Khawaja's turn to be benefit from his hosts' generosity when he was beaten for pace by a ball from Naseem Shah that skidded low into the left-hander and clipped the inside edge of his before crashing into off stump.

No sooner had the 19-year-old bowler aimed a pointed celebration at Khawaja (who had scored 31) that was part exuberance, part annoyance than his mood turned to incredulity with umpire Dar's confirmation it was a front-foot no-ball.

It was a haunting reprise of what Naseem experienced in his Test debut aged 16 against the same opponents at the Gabba when his euphoria at claiming Warner as his maiden international scalp was ripped away from him when another no-ball was detected.

To round out a forgettable hour, on top of the lamentable one they had endured a day earlier, seamer Hasan Ali felt he had Khawaja (on 38) trapped lbw as he advanced down the pitch to a ball that bounced barely shin height, and convinced his skipper Babar Azam to send it for a second opinion.

But that process didn't get as far as determining whether the ball would have rolled on to hit the stumps as it confirmed what most onlookers suspected, in that Khawaja could not possibly have failed to connect and had indeed edged on to his pad.

The faithful fans who had shown up did have a reason to blow their horns moments before lunch when Shaheen took final bragging rights in his often theatrical battle with Warner when he nipped one past the left-hander's outside edge and uprooted his off-stump.

As Warner walked past his foe on the way back to the pavilion, Shaheen fell into step beside him for one final verbal joust which ended with the Australian beaming, broadly thinking his team was best placed to enjoy the last laugh.

Qantas Tour of Pakistan 2022

Pakistan squad: Babar Azam (c), Mohammad Rizwan (vc), Abdullah Shafique, Azhar Ali, Faheem Ashraf, Fawad Alam, Haris Rauf, Hasan Ali, Iftikhar Ahmed, Imam-ul-Haq, Mohammad Wasim Jnr, Naseem Shah, Nauman Ali, Sajid Khan, Saud Shakeel, Shaheen Shah Afridi, Shan Masood, Zahid Mahmood.

Australia Test squad: Pat Cummins (c), Ashton Agar, Scott Boland, Alex Carey, Cameron Green, Marcus Harris, Josh Hazlewood, Travis Head, Josh Inglis, Usman Khawaja, Marnus Labuschagne, Nathan Lyon, Mitchell Marsh, Steve Smith (vc), Mitchell Starc, Mark Steketee, Mitchell Swepson, David Warner.

First Test: Match drawn

March 12-16: Match drawn

March 21-25: Third Test, Lahore

Pakistan ODI and T20 squad: Babar Azam (c), Shadab Khan, Abdullah Shafique*, Asif Afridi, Asif Ali, Fakhar Zaman, Haider Ali, Haris Rauf, Hasan Ali, Iftikhar Ahmed, Imam-ul-Haq*, Khushdil Shah, Mohammad Haris, Zahid Mahmood, Mohammad Rizwan, Mohammad Wasim, Saud Shakeel*, Shaheen Afridi, Shahnawaz Dahani, Usman Qadir (*ODIs only)

Australia ODI and T20 squad: Aaron Finch (c), Sean Abbott, Ashton Agar, Jason Behrendorff, Alex Carey, Ben Dwarshuis, Nathan Ellis, Cameron Green, Travis Head, Josh Inglis, Marnus Labuschagne, Mitchell Marsh, Ben McDermott, Steve Smith, Marcus Stoinis, Adam Zampa

March 29: First ODI, Lahore

March 31: Second ODI, Lahore

April 2: Third ODI, Lahore

April 5: Only T20I, Lahore

All matches to be broadcast in Australia on Fox Cricket and Kayo Sports