Shane Watson was dismissed in the nineties for the third time this summer, but not before Pakistan's sizeable first innings lead was all but erased. Watson's contribution of 97 was the driving force behind Australia's advancement to 3 for 199 at the tea break, reducing to seven runs Pakistan's first innings advantage on an SCG wicket that continued to mellow with age.
Pakistan seized three wickets after lunch to maintain their claims to victory, but Australia clearly enjoyed the better of the opening two sessions on Tuesday. Employing far greater patience and awareness than their previous innings, the hosts methodically reeled in Pakistan's total on a sun-kissed afternoon.
The Australians benefitted from a number of missed opportunities on the third day, most notably the reprieve afforded to Watson by Danish Kaneria. Fielding on the fine-leg boundary, Kaneria dropped a lofted Watson pull stroke over the rope to provide Watson with the six that took his career tally beyond 1000 runs. Watson might also have been run out on the stroke of lunch, only for Kamran Akmal to neglect to remove the bails, and the wicketkeeper appeared to drop a fine Michael Hussey edge off the bowling of Kaneria just prior to tea.
The Australians took full advantage of the Pakistani reprieves and the flattening SCG surface to return to the reckoning in a Test that appeared beyond their grasp for much of the first two days. Only five times in Test history has a team trailing by 200-plus on the first innings recorded victory, and the 105-run opening stand between Watson and Phillip Hughes provided Australia with a chance to add to the tally.
Pakistan added just two runs to their overnight first innings total as Doug Bollinger (4-72) snuffed out Danish Kaneria with his fifth ball of the morning. That took Pakistan's lead to 206 - their second highest first innings advantage over the Australians in 54 years of competition between the two countries - although with the SCG pitch nowhere near as threatening as the opening day, the Australians would not have entirely counted themselves out of the contest.
The hosts began their second innings riposte in nervous fashion, with Watson French-cutting his Mohammad Asif's second legal delivery millimetres of his leg-stump and Phillip Hughes slashing extravagantly at a wide Mohammad Sami offering the next over. The SCG crowd applauded when Hughes shouldered arms to his next delivery, and the young opener appeared to take the message to heart as he shelved his attacking instincts to see off four maiden overs before the first drinks break.
Watson, meanwhile, adopted a more aggressive mindset and peppered the boundaries with a series of authoritative drives and pull strokes. He bookended Sami's first over after lunch with a pulled six and cut four, and proceeded to punish Pakistan's tactic of bowling wide of off-stump to 7-2 field settings by blasting anything short between mid-wicket and long-on. In all, Watson struck 11 boundaries and three sixes, the vast majority of which were scored through the leg-side.
A more circumspect Hughes headed to the lunch break unbeaten on 31 from 71 deliveries, but his resistance ended early in the second session when a return catch was brilliantly reeled in by an outstretched Kaneria. Ricky Ponting continued his forgettable outing at the SCG by chasing the second ball of Umar Gul's second spell and edging to Faisal Iqbal in the slips, and Watson's bid for back-to-back centuries was terminated attempting to cut Gul too close to his body on 97.
Watson may be redefining the term 'nervous nineties' this summer, but his record of four fifties and a century since the Ashes has proven a major factor in Australia's return to the winner's circle. Of his 1,076 career runs, 819 have been scored in his 14 innings as opener. Clearly, the view at the top agrees with him.
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