The botched slips catch that said it all for Pakistan

In the way that a dying man’s life flashes before his eyes, many thoughts must have passed through the mind of Abdullah Shafique’s mind as Mitch Marsh’s thick edge flew towards him at first slip.

Too many.

Australia would be merely 100 ahead with no recognised in-form batsmen left. Pakistan’s previous good work this day in which they toughed it out for an extra 70 runs at the end of their first innings and then skittled Australia’s top order like so many ninepins at the start of their second innings would be consummated.

Pakistan strike bowler Shaheen Afridi got the late wicket of Steve Smith.Credit: Getty Images

A rare Test victory in Australia, which had eluded more distinguished teams than this, would become a genuine possibility, and what an upset of the apple cart that would be. An already good impression would become a notch in their belts. Pakistan have won only four Tests ever in Australia, one since 1981, and lost their past 15 in a row.

But Shafique also would have had time for darker thoughts, too, about the dolly he dropped in the same position from David Warner in the first innings, about a couple of straightforward chances he’d also fumbled in the first Test in Perth, about whether he was a slipper at all.

Flashback: Abdullah Shafique drops an easy catch in the first innings.Credit: Fox Cricket

Don’t doubt for a moment that at least some of these considerations occurred to Shafique. Sportspeople by nature have to weigh and sort many possibilities in split seconds, and sometimes the bad crowd out the good.

Too bad.

Shafique dropped it. Shelled it. Botched it completely.

He sank to his knees, as well he might. He looked nauseous. He cannot have failed to sense the gravity of the moment. The next ball should have been a dot to captain Shan Masood at mid-off, but slithered through him and away for four. The bowler denied his due was Aamir Jamal.

Costly moment: Mitch Marsh (on 20 runs) is dropped in the slips cordon.Credit: Fox Cricket

This was the pivot not just in the day’s play, but in the latest exposition of what might be called Pakistanity.

The single most distinguishing and enduring feature of Pakistan’s cricket is that it is mercurial. Their best is sublime, their worst sub-standard. They’re admirable one minute, laughable the next, prodigious and prodigal by turns, unpredictable even to themselves. Their next likely gambit is like the rain that momentarily delayed play on Thursday morning, not on anyone’s radar.

Pakistanity won’t win Test matches in Australia. It’s too erratic to hope to succeed against the generally relentless home team. It’s not enough to win moments brilliantly; you have to win hours and days. In short, you have to take all your chances.

This team has impressed as more even and disciplined than most before them, and at least as endearing. Their willingness, set alongside a no-name South African team’s thrashing of India, might lead you to think that reports of the death of Test cricket have been greatly exaggerated. There’s a lot of fake news about, you know.

But this was a day of classic Pakistanity, a match of it. They restricted Australia to 318 in the first innings, but 52 of those were extras, a profligate number. It is quite conceivable they will lose the match by that margin.

Doughty wicketkeeper Mohammad Rizwan marshalled a bit of a Pakistani tail wag on Thursday morning, then when Australian captain Pat Cummins set an obvious trap for him at cover point hit the first ball straight there.

All left-arm opening pair - a very Pakistani conformation - Shaheen Shah Afridi and Mir Hamza demolished Australia’s top order with a burst that rekindled peppery memories of the great Wasim Akram. The MCG was shocked.

But from the catch that was and then wasn’t, everything changed. Marsh projected ever-growing assurance, and for the anxious but absorbed crowd reassurance. Steve Smith, strangled for scoring shots, decided to drop bloody-minded anchor.

Both rode their luck, a necessary provision to almost every Test innings of substance, but once mounted played to their strengths. What might have been a last gasp became a partnership of 153. At slip, Shafique hunched deeper and deeper into his shoulder blades, a forlorn figure.

The Pakistanis were not terrible, far from it. They produced some beautiful seam and swing bowling, on that classic line that damned the batsman if he played and damned him if he didn’t. They remained ever-threatening.

But they’d used their quota of good things. Cricket is a game of margins. The ball that might have produced an edge missed altogether, the edge that might have produced a catch disappeared into a gap, and all while Marsh romped on and Smith ballasted on and the match slipped out of Pakistan’s reach.

It was Test cricket at its most contrary. It was Pakistanity in apotheosis.

Three and a half hours later, the stage was set for the completion of Marsh’s century when Hamza found the edge again and the ball flew low and wide of first slip. But Shafique had been banished and replaced by Salman Ali Agha, who sprawled metres to his right to clutch the catch in one outflung hand and give Pakistan a fingerhold back on the match.

Late twist: A frustrated Steve Smith after he was gone for 50.Credit: AP

Then literally at the stroke of stumps, Afridi reared a ball at Smith and a looping catch to gully put an end to his long vigil and the genie had prised the lid ajar on the bottle. It was out of the blue, but it was only Pakistan’s due, and this time it came their way.

It was Test cricket at its most contrary. It was Pakistanity in apotheosis.

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