When Pakistan and Australia step out in the steamy Sharjah heat on Friday, it will be 46 years to the day that they began their first Test, on a matting strip at Karachi. If this match follows a similar pattern to that one, most Pakistanis - though few Australians - will be happy. Australian captain Ian Johnson won the toss and elected to bat, but he presumably didn't know that his decision would precipitate the slowest day's play in Test history: just 95 runs were scored for the loss of 12 wickets, with not a rain break in sight. In fact, in the whole match, 535 runs were scored off a paint-drying 301.3 overs. It's a good job Steve Waugh wasn't alive: he'd have had kittens.

Australia were skittled for 80, but it was an extremely slow torture: their innings spanned 53.1 overs. Fazal Mahmood and Khan Mohammad bowled unchanged throughout, with Fazal's immaculate line and length yielding 6 for 34. Not for nothing was he known as `the Alec Bedser of Pakistan'.

Pakistan stuttered to 70 for 5 in reply, but then Wazir Mohammad (67) and their captain Abdul Kardar (69) added a crucial 104 for the sixth wicket. A first-innings lead of 119 was very good going against an extremely good Australian side - it included Messrs Harvey, Miller, Benaud, Davidson and Lindwall.

The Aussies slumped to 47 for 5 second time around, but a punchy fifty from Benaud led the fightback, and at 141 for 6 on a troublesome pitch, Australia had good reason to sniff an unlikely comeback. The inevitable Fazal, though, had other ideas …

Almanack report
Scorecard

Rob Smyth is assistant editor of Wisden.com.

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