100 RUNS TOO MANY

Salman Butt: The Key Man

Target 440. Too much! Pakistan were in a situation yesterday when they had the chance to dismiss Australia for at least 100 runs short of what they eventually managed. The target would then have been 340... and at their current stage (148 for 1... incidentally, they were 148 for 10 in the 1st innings), they would have needed just 192 more runs with 9 wickets in hand.

That would have been a sure shot way to put Ricky Ponting under immense pressure... and he's not been the best of captains when the tide is not in his team's favour! But all that is fiction!

Right now, Pakistan is still 292 runs short of their target with 9 wickets in hand. Salman Butt is unbeaten on 80 and Azhar Ali on 40... both having made a positive start on Day 4. The weather forecast reads 'Partly Cloudy' and Miller in the Cricinfo commentary team says that the sun will be out during the day. So all in all, things do look positive for Pakistan.

But I really doubt it... Pakistan chasing down a 4th innings target of 440 against an Australian attack of Doug Bollinger, Ben Hilfenhaus and Mitchell Johnson seems an extremely unlikely scenario to me.