Having conceded an imposing lead of 223 runs on the first innings, Pakistan at the end of the third evening were up against heavy odds after losing three early wickets. And unless they bat all day today and carry on with the good work on Sunday, the chances of them coming out unscathed from their ordeal are grim.

It is not an easy task for the present-day lot whose inconsistency with the bat for some years has been a debatable point for their supporters and selectors alike.

Rain, though, is predicted for the last day of this match which may come or may not to save Pakistan from their self-inflicted predicament which from the very first day pushed them on the back foot after they were dismissed cheaply.

They had done well in the morning on Friday to bowl Sri Lanka out before lunch, allowing them to add only 70 more runs to their overnight 318 for 4. But then the loss of their opener Ahmed Shehzad before lunch and two wickets immediately after the break were not the kind of fightback which they had been aiming for to save this match.

The danger even lurked of Pakistan batting perishing within the last two sessions. But thankfully, it didn’t come to that in the end.

To pull a team back out of this mire, it was important for those in the middle to not only defend strongly but also to bring some respectability to Pakistan’s recent record in such grave situations which has seldom been face saving or worth mentioning.

This brings to mind a rare feat and the greatest escape that a Pakistan team had ever had when up against extreme adversity on their visit to West Indies in January 1958. How they saved the six-day Test after following on 473 runs behind in the Barbados Test is, of couse, history.

The legendary Hanif Mohammad had then batted for over sixteen hours lasting nearly three days to score 337 runs, still the longest innings ever played at Test level, to earn an honourable draw for Pakistan.

It is also interesting to note that out of the 26 triple hundreds scored in the 140 years of Test cricket, Hanif is the only one who scored in the second innings of the match. A rare feat indeed from a man who belonged to a rare breed of batsmen in history.

Not many had such power of concentration, discipline, skills, footwork and focus as the ‘Little Master’ had.

It was kind of heart warming, though, that Pakistan was not ready to give up without a fight after early setbacks.

Both Younis Khan and Misbah-ul-Haq put a straight bat to everything in line of the wicket and also grabbed opportunities to find gaps to make a half century each, sharing a 113-run unbroken partnership to survive the day and an outside chance to be saved by the bell if rain comes and spoils the show for Sri Lanka.