Stubborn lower order batting has been Tasmania's prerogative for much of this season. Today, it was worth its weight in gold as the scrambling Tigers seized first innings points in a thrilling end to the opening phase of the Pura Cup clash against Victoria here in Melbourne.

It was a last wicket stand of 114 four weeks ago that revived Tasmania's terminal-looking season. And it hasn't been the only tailend effort of note by any means.

Here, an association of 40 runs for the eighth wicket between Damien Wright (48) and David Saker (13), and a nerveless unbroken 18 for the tenth between Shane Jurgensen (13*) and Xavier Doherty (4*) carried the Tigers past Victoria's 8/371 and to two crucial first innings points.

Albeit that the fourth dropped catch of their innings also played a major part.

Patience has been the virtue of the best-crafted performances throughout this game but was a commodity that was largely absent on the third day as the sides concocted a battle that kept rumbling away until the stroke of tea.

Victoria bowled a diet of loose balls in the early minutes, and then Tasmania followed up with a menu of loose shots as the heat of a cloudless Melbourne day was translated to the contest itself.

The Tasmanians had appeared well poised to snare the two points as they resumed at 2/191, and they made encouraging progress toward that end when Michael Dighton (124) and Michael Di Venuto (83) extended their third wicket stand to a mark of 197.

The pair even made the battle for first innings points resemble a one-horse race for a time. But that was before Di Venuto was the victim of a curious dismissal as medium pacer Andrew McDonald (1/6) beat a glance with a ball that looked to be heading marginally wide of the left hander's leg stump yet somehow conspired to hit it.

The horse hadn't quite bolted by this time, and the Victorians duly attempted to nail the stable door shut when they happened upon their best spell of the innings with some excellent new ball bowling.

On a pitch showing its first real signs of variability in bounce, pacemen Damien Fleming (1/64), Will Carr (2/55) and Mick Lewis (2/46) all provoked a series of false strokes to engineer a decline that saw the visitors lose four wickets while a mere 31 runs were added to the scorecard.

In the process, Tasmania's innings threatened to unravel.

Dighton drove loosely to show Carr the outside edge and present him with his maiden first-class wicket when the ball flew to Matthew Elliott in the slips. Daniel Marsh (9) pulled angrily at, and over the top of, a short delivery from Fleming that kept lower than expected on its unimpeded passage into off stump. Sean Clingeleffer (1) was trapped in front of his stumps as he shuffled across to play defensively at Carr, and then Scott Kremerskothen (21) lost concentration, prodded at a ball of good length from Lewis, and feathered a catch to the wicketkeeper.

Wright - enjoying a week out in Melbourne - and Saker altered the complexion of a see-sawing game before each inexplicably suffered not so much from rushes of blood as from attempts to revise medical practitioners' existing understandings of circulation.

They had taken their team to within 25 runs of the first innings finishing post when Saker tried to clout a delivery from leg spinner Cameron White (3/97) way beyond its eventual resting place at cover. Only a further nine runs had been added when Wright attempted something similar, with the only variations being that the intended target was mid wicket and the catch was completed at point.

But a Victorian error was even more expensive.

With the Tasmanians still five runs away from the promised land, Jurgensen misread a slower ball from Ian Harvey (0/63) and was drawn into driving toward Michael Klinger at cover. A catch at head-height that wouldn't have been nearly so difficult in a less frenetic atmosphere promptly became Klinger's second miss of the innings in his role as a substitute for the injured Jason Arnberger.

As it burst through his hands and hit the earth with a thud about five metres behind him, it was as if the ball was carrying the two states' respective destinies for the season along with it.

Jurgensen soon struck another delivery into vacant space at square leg, the baby-faced Doherty repeated the dose and, when the former expertly guided a ball from Harvey to third man, the Tasmanians had moved on to level terms in the competition with third-placed Western Australia and only two points behind second-placed South Australia.

They could have only Queensland in front of them by the end of this match tomorrow if they finish it as well as they concluded the first innings dog fight.

Pace bowler Wright (1/29) added impetus to their claims when a serene off cutter conquered Arnberger (10). Elliott (60*) and Brad Hodge (50*) subsequently stabilised the Bushrangers' cause - kick-starting an urgent quest to conjure an outright result - on a day when their aspirations of staying alive in the competition had met with a significant setback.

The players had been serenaded on to the ground at the start of the day by the advertising missive "twice your pleasure". But, by the end, it was a case of pleasure and pain being distributed in equal measure.

© 2002 CricInfo Ltd