Pakistan's ugly yet glorious day

It was hard out there when Pakistan started their day. Soon everyone told Pakistan they were doing it wrong. It started with them being too slow.

Azhar Ali needs no invitation to put the handbrake on, take away the spark plugs and put his car up on blocks. Fifty minutes after the day started, he started scoring runs. Forget ugly runs, Azhar had decided on no runs. He literally had more balls when he was hit on the head, than he looked like scoring off. There were some who thought he needed to score to survive, he disagreed. Others thought he needed to just rotate strike, wrong again.

Younis Khan scored slowly as well, but then when he started to score quicker, he scored the wrong way, he scored ugly. That tends to happen when you use the outside of your bat as the main part. Younis edged past the slips, past the gully, past the leg slip, short of the slips, onto his toes, and even when he tried using the other neglected part of his bat, he flicked it in the air. Australia had decided to try the "Misbah plan" to him and bowl very wide of off stump, and it might have worked, and they would have got away with it too, if it wasn't for those soft hands.

When Azhar or Younis did play a big shot, most the time some pesky Australian fielder would pull of an athletic dive and stop it. But finally Younis got one through, a slashing aerial catchable shot through point that raced to the rope, which had the Gabba attendant shouting into his radio, "We've got a boundary to fix for the first time in two days."

Just as this grim partnership had managed to soften the ball - they were just about to capitalise on their work - it rained. When they came back out, they had to start again. Younis did with a violent forehand smash, but Azhar fell to a short ball down the leg side.

Misbah-ul-Haq came out, it rained again, he came out again, and then resumed the turgid trudge of Pakistan. While Younis' runs were starting to look prettier, and more Younis-like, Misbah was prodding and poking for 34 balls before he went out. When you lose Misbah's wicket in general, often all hope is lost. When you are more than 300 runs behind, and Misbah's wicket is lost, hope isn't lost: its decayed corpse has been found floating in the river of despair.

Then Younis, not batting slow nor batting ugly, was in the dark hour, with the new ball around the corner and his leader gone. He was soon out trying to reverse sweep. People screamed so loud at their TV sets that Younis could practically hear them. "Ridiculous, stupid, terrible."

The other two reverse sweeps he tried earlier were all right, because he didn't get out then. The many times in his career when he has used the reverse sweep as a tactic to stop the bowler using a particular line, or length, or fielding strategy, they were fine too. The times he has used it as a valid scoring shot in his career, as a shot to show that he can't be tied down, a shot to make sure that the bowler is not in charge, a shot that he has probably played a thousand times - actually, knowing how old he is, maybe a million times - they were all fine. But this one was bad.

At first, it was his golden duck that annoyed people. Then it was the pace of this innings that annoyed people. Then it was the style of the innings that annoyed people. And finally, it was the dismissal that annoyed people. Younis Khan, horribly out of form, older than Neil Harvey, struggling to see the pink ball, bats through two rain breaks, survives a tough section, makes 65, and is out trying to be proactive and dictate to Australia, and he annoys people.

And if all Azhar and Younis did was play themselves into a bit of form, that would have been pretty good with two Tests to play. But they did something else; their ugly, slow runs made Australia tired. By the time Younis was being abused for his reverse sweep, Azhar and him had taken 74.3 overs out of the innings. Australia had rain breaks, and hadn't even bowled all those overs today, but they weren't as sharp as in the first innings.

And so, when Sarfraz came in, his slaps and slogs took a bit off the new ball as well. And so, when Pakistan's now customary, hot-hand rotation of the No. 8 position - to whomever has made runs the innings before - meant an in-form and confident Mohammad Amir came in, Australia were just a little tired, frustrated, and wanting to get the whole thing over with.

Amir frustrated them some more, but it was Asad Shafiq who defied them.

Shafiq was quite slow to get going; it took him 12 balls to get off the mark. He got some ugly runs, an edge that went through fourth slip being a highlight. And he played some attacking shots to Nathan Lyon - one went straight over the head of mid-on. In fact, he took risks all the time; he went up and over point so often that Australia must have thought about a catching deep point. He hooked one for six, not far from fine leg. He drove a massive swinging length ball and was dropped at short cover. And then again at slip, and that too playing a bit of a loose shot when they had just lost the wicket of Amir.

Shafiq kept going with his luck. He threw entire kitchen units at balls outside off stump. He swept Nathan Lyon from outside off stump regularly. He took on the short ball. He slashed one for his hundred. That hundred was off 140 balls, despite the fact he came in when Misbah had killed hope, when Younis had thrown the match away, and with his side needing over 300 runs for a victory and some biblical rain intervention for a draw.

He took his time, then he was ugly, then he was attacking and then he was magnificent. His innings made you believe in Wahab Riaz with the bat. It made you believe that Pakistan, without a hundred from Misbah, in a day-night Test at the Gabba, despite Younis not making a big-daddy score, and with no adequate warm-up game, could actually chase 490.

You want to know why Pakistan got to No. 1 in the world? It's because despite their flaws - and hell yes, they have flaws - despite their mistakes - and hell yes, they make mistakes - and despite their entire archaic cricket system - and hell yes, their system is unprofessional in many ways - they fight, they are patient and they have talent.

Despite the glory of the never-ending session, this probably won't be a victory, but it was a triumph of Pakistan over common cricket logic, which is what they have been doing for quite a few years. This was the modern Misbah side in all it's ugly, slow, shambolic and beautiful glory.

They did it the hard way, because that's their way.