Lyon struck early for Australia © AFP
If the slow-moving contest could get any slower at the National Stadium in Karachi, it did in the morning session on Day 4. 34 runs were scored for the loss of only two wickets in the first two hours of play. Abdullah Shafique and Azhar Ali stonewalled their way to help Pakistan to 18 for 1 at Lunch on Tuesday.

Earlier in the day, Australia added 16 runs to their overnight score before losing Marnus Labuschange and declaring their innings on 97 for 2. The Australian No 3 was cleaned up by Shaheen Afridi on 44 as Australia set the hosts a massive target of 506 to win with more than five and a half sessions of play. Usman Khawaja, who had stroked 160 in the first innings, remained unbeaten on 44.

In response, Pakistanis looked to settle down in the chase and in turn tire out the Australians by stonewalling. In 21 overs, they managed to score only 18, which included 11 maiden overs. The defensive tactic didn't reap much reward for Imam ul haq, who was trapped legbefore on 1 by Nathan Lyon in less than half hour of their innings.

The Australian bowlers bowled in probing lines but didn't cause much trouble to the Pakistanis. Towards the last few overs of the session, the ball started to reverse a bit for Pat Cummins, but not dangerous enough to beat the batters.

However, given Pakistan's approach so far and the equation of the match, it seems unlikely that they will make any attempt to make the post Lunch session anymore enterprising.

Brief Scores: Australia 556/9 decl. (Usman Khawaja 160, Alex Carey 93; Faheem Ashraf 2-55, Sajid Khan 2-167) & 97/2 decl (Marnus Labuschagne 44, Usman Khawaja 44*) lead Pakistan 148 (Babar Azam 36; Mitchell Starc 3-29, Mitchell Swepson 2-32) & 18/1 (Nathan Lyon 1-4) by 487 runs.