Pakistan's pursuit of history culminates in another heartbreak

"Pakistan! ZINDABAD!!!"

The chant goes up, loud and proud, in the Shane Warne Stand, where a group of Pakistan fans have congregated. It's a relatively small crowd - fewer than 20,000 come through the turnstiles all day - but here in this little corner, the flags you see do not bear the Blue Ensign, but the green and white of the star and crescent.

Asif leads the chants, his three-year-old son clinging to his leg. His father, Asif says, was at the SCG in 1995 when Pakistan last beat Australia in a Test match in this country, and while he won't have the chance to be in Sydney next week, this might just be his - and Pakistan's - moment.

It's early evening, shortly after the tea break, and it's not the most optimistic time to have this chat. Josh Hazlewood has just bowled what appears to be a match-turning spell, sending down 24 successive dots before rattling Babar's off stump. Saud Shakeel fell to Mitchell Starc shortly after, and it's suddenly all down to Mohammad Rizwan and Salman Ali Agha, with 155 runs standing between them and the summit.

But Asif hopes. Hope is the last thing you lose. "Pakistan!," he yells again. "ZINDABAD!!!," they cry back.

It's impossible to describe what a historic Test match smells like, but anyone who has woken up on that decisive morning will know. It's that final morning in Karachi in March 2022, that day in Brisbane in 2021 or 2016. As the train pulls up at Jolimont Station, the walk across the bridge and through Yarra Park is sensory overload. The MCG, visible in all its glory, may just be about to see another strand of history woven through it. There are few more intoxicating feelings than a simmering Test match that has come to a boil.

Pakistan already have regrets because Australia are 241 ahead, perhaps too far in front already. That, certainly, was Mitchell Marsh's view, whose 96 put them in that imperious position, after he was put down by Abdullah Shafique in a slip cordon he didn't belong in 76 runs earlier. But Pakistan believe they have found a way to survive, in the cricketing wasteland that Australia is to visiting sides, Pakistan have stayed in the bunker just long enough; willing to wound, and yet, until now, afraid to strike.

Pakistan do strike in the morning, but perhaps not quite soon enough. The final few partnerships added 22, 28, 12, and 13. Shaheen Afridi is the first to strike, drawing an edge from Mitchell Starc. This time, the man who should have been there all along dives low to take an excellent catch. Babar has given Pakistan the breakthrough. How, you feel, they'll need him today.

Meanwhile, Shahid Afridi has rocked up to the MCG, declaring he believes the target is chaseable. He can't know what that target is, because Australia are still batting, but it would be unlike Shahid to consider that. He is flanked by Pakistan squash legend Jahangir Khan, who knows a thing or two about winning streaks.

Shan Masood and Babar are out there together. Six weeks ago, they were both in Lahore on a very different kind of day. Babar had just been told he was being done away with as white-ball captain and could see where he wasn't wanted, resigning from the Test captaincy, too. Masood was there to be anointed his successor, and while the pair have never exactly been best of friends, what they're doing right now is too important to let anything as trivial as that get in their way.

Imam-ul-Haq looked like a dead man walking from the moment he stepped out, but it was Shafique who fell first, perhaps fittingly, by edging to the slips. It was a sharp catch at third slip, but, unlike Pakistan, Australia have their cordon worked out to a tee, and Usman Khawaja did not err. Pat Cummins worked Imam over before trapping him in front shortly after.

But, while any mention of Masood and Babar in the same sentence only highlighted the dysfunctional nature of Pakistan cricket until a little while ago, the captain and his predecessor are ticking together like clockwork. Shan takes the lead, as he needs to, building on his first innings-half-century with a knock that carries the promise of something even more substantial. He lifts the scoring rate, moving onto the front foot early and anticipating the short ball, too. The bounce doesn't appear to trouble him, and he manages to steer Hazlewood and Starc into gaps. Babar, meanwhile, hangs back, more cautious but equally assured, aware that if Pakistan are to make a fist of it, they are unlikely to do it without him.

The partnership crosses 50, the total passes 100, and the belief rises once more.

Then, the dagger. Anytime Australia's bowlers have come up short, Cummins has limbered up to the mark. He comes around the wicket to Masood, and it takes him just three balls to find the perfect delivery. It's on off stump, wobbling away, and Masood defends with hard hands. On the second day, a similar nick dropped an inch short of Khawaja, but Steve Smith takes a sharp catch. Hazlewood's spell has seen Babar off, and though Babar's not in the best form, that doesn't tell the story of how metronomically accurate Australia have been to him. He protected the inside edge twice in Perth, only to nick off. Here, he covers the outside edge, and Hazlewood, like Cummins before him, manages to sneak past his defences on the inside.

But while Australia sniff a four-day victory, Rizwan and Agha seem to be up to something. Rizwan is doing that jittery thing where he never looks settled while playing the most confident, low-percentage shots on both sides. That swivel-pull off the ribs to Cummins is a sign of the kind of mood he's in, while Agha won't be left behind. The ball after he's pelted on the helmet and a lengthy concussion protocol follows, he whips his liquid wrists to dispatch him to third man. An edge off Hazlewood flies away for four more, while a wristy offside flick from Rizwan clears the slips and dashes down.

It is that stage of a Test match where all roads lead to an epic finish. The Australian fans still outnumber the Pakistanis, but it is the support for the visiting side that truly appreciates the magnitude of what they might be witnessing. Pakistan's target is now below a hundred, and they have half the side still to come in. This is a generational opportunity - like Hobart 1999, Sydney 2010, and Brisbane 2016. But this is happening now, and in the moment, it feels different.

The MCG scorecard flashes up the 'top five chases at this ground.' The only one above 300 came 95 years ago, and just one of the top five features a game that took place after Pakistan became a country - a South African chase of 297 in 1953. But while history says don't hope on this side of the grave, Pakistan prefer the concluding line of that famous Seamus Heaney stanza. They believe hope and history are about to rhyme.

Rizwan glances up at the scoreboard before he takes guard for the next ball. Cummins has once more brought himself on to squash this last rebellion from Pakistan and to that end, he bowls the cricketing equivalent of a body serve, one that's lined up on middle and continues to rise while still being low enough to make ducking impossible.

Rizwan gets out of the way, arching his body back and keeping his bat out of the way. But that's not what Australia see, and when Michael Gough doesn't agree with them, up it goes to the TV screen. Rizwan points repeatedly at a mark on his forearm to indicate where the impact was made, but the technology shows a spike, as well as a mark on his wristband. 24 years ago, the lack of similar technology denied Pakistan a certain win against Australia. It was a clicky bat handle then, a kissed wristband now, and it's all the same to Pakistan.

As Rizwan walks off, still gesticulating furiously, Pakistan's fighting spirit goes up in smoke too. The next 39 balls are a blur from the same repetition, the one of crushed dreams and the sickening knowledge that it ends the same. It will always end the same way.

By the time the final wicket has fallen, the bright sunshine of the early evening gives way to the evening clouds. But few of those supporters in that Warne stand are there to see it. There seems little point when they've seen it all before. The Southern Cross is everywhere once more, the star and crescent folded away.

Asif's father never saw another Pakistan win in Australia, and for him and his young son, the wait continues. They, along with the millions back in Pakistan, may insist they will never be back, that there is no point. Perhaps even that they do not care.

But of course they do. It is what prompted team director Mohammad Hafeez to lambast the technology, and induced someone as mild-mannered as Rizwan to protest so furiously. And when Sydney rolls around next week, the fire will continue to burn for a side that knows it stared at history but blinked first.

It is why those early alarms will go off all over Pakistan again next week, and hundreds of people with stories like Asif's will descend upon the SCG. The wait will continue, for one more Test, perhaps for one more series, maybe for one more generation. But the one thing that lasts longer than Australian heartbreak is Pakistani belief. And days like this at the MCG - the smell of hope and the lure of nostalgia - are exactly why.