Cricket: O'Brien's late strike brings win into sight

Iain O'Brien celebrates the wicket of Mohammad Yousuf. Photo / Getty Images

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New Zealand turned in a day of honest toil yesterday and got a spectacular late reward to significantly boost their hopes of winning the third test against Pakistan.

The dismissal of batting kingpin Mohammad Yousuf when play resumed at 7.26pm after an hour off for light rain gave the match a sharp twist in New Zealand's favour.

With the series locked at one-all, the tourists start the final day on 347 for four, holding an overall lead of 99 with six wickets standing.

Until play resumed with long shadows stretching across the ground, the honours were even, the odds rock solid on the draw. However Yousuf's departure, touching a ball from fast-medium Iain O'Brien to the wicketkeeper on 89, had the New Zealanders whooping in delight and sensing a shift in the contest.

Pakistan cannot win the test, unless New Zealand's batsmen find a way to stuff things up today - assuming, of course, that they get the chance - and for that to happen on the country's best batting strip they will have to sink lower than their worst excesses of Dunedin and Wellington earlier in the series.

But the chink of light New Zealand could see late yesterday afternoon became a solid thick strip through an open door upon Yousuf's departure.

If they can grab another couple of wickets before lunch today - and the gifted teenager Umar Akmal, while full of bold ambition, didn't conclusively suggest permanence late yesterday - they will figure Pakistan's tail is there for the taking.

The day began with captain Dan Vettori tossing the ball to batsman Martin Guptill for the opening over. Vettori could have stuck on a red nose and tossed down a banana and produced a less surprising reaction.

Two overs of Guptill's seemingly innocuous offspin the previous night for a punt was one thing; giving him first dibs yesterday an entirely different matter.

The idea was for him to bowl one over to let seamer Chris Martin change ends. But it produced double delight when the part-timer raised his hat and produced a couple of rabbits, openers Salman Butt and Imran Farhat pushing back return catches for his first test wickets.

"I'm pretty stoked. I'd like to say I've done them in the air, but it's probably not the case," he quipped.

Yousuf and Faisal Iqbal restored order with a measured 128-run stand.

Yousuf is among the great modern day batsmen, and he looked like a man who knew when he woke yesterday that a century was his for the taking with a modicum of care and attention to detail. For almost his entire four and a half hours in the middle he seemed in charge. He had a couple of close shaves on 12 and 69 when direct hits would have had him run out, but he drove crisply, worked the ball behind point cleverly and has the stock-in-trade shots off his pads to keep things ticking along.

One measure of an innings' worth is if it comes as a surprise when the batsman is out. So it was at 7.35 last night.

By contrast Iqbal, nephew of the great Javed Miandad, mixed periods of crawling along in singles with bouts of crunching strokeplay, as if roused grumpily from a pleasant nap.

The pair had their sternest test before tea when Martin and O'Brien produced an impressively hostile spell. Martin got Yousuf in a tangle with a sharp delivery which fell to safety rather than close-catching hands; then had Iqbal pop a ball just over short leg from another lifter. Ross Taylor at first slip spilled a regulation catch off Iqbal on 48 from O'Brien but took a second offering soon after off a poor stroke.

Akmal clumped Daryl Tuffey over the mid wicket fence to get off the mark. He won't die wondering and needed some settling words from his captain more than once yesterday. Still, he's terrific entertainment and the little man needs to stand tall today. The longer he is out there, the tougher New Zealand's job will become.