The moon turned blue. Pigs flew. Pakistan began to home in on the impossible Test match win.
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Australia finally end remarkable Pakistan chase
Despite Asad Shafiq and Yasir Shah's last innings heroics, Pakistan fall just short of an improbable run chase.
The sky fell in. A man ate a hat. Asad Shafiq and Yasir Shah went about their work busily, but never with any sense of being weighed down by the immensity of what they stood to achieve. The burden was all on Australia's shoulders, and it showed in their treacly plodding. Later, Steve Smith was steadfast in defence of his tactics, but he would not be human if he was not starting to second-guess every decision, up to and including the non-follow-on.
The 12th of never arrived. A month of Sundays passed. The Pakistanis built their partnership to 40, then 50, then 60. Initially, the Australians retreated from Shafiq, who in turn protected Yasir, but soon enough, they were playing as equals, and with equal competence and aplomb.
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The empty stadium filled, with tension and the chant of a few dozen Pakistanis: "Pakistan Zindabad, Pakistan Zindabad". This is more or less how it is in their home-in-exile in Dubai. When you have no home, everywhere is home. Now, of all the unlikely places, the Gabba was.
Hell froze over. A snowball had a chance there. An hour went by, then another half. In the press box, patronising tones were replaced by hushed, then gulps. 660/1 became notionally even money. Wishes became horses.
At last, Australia stopped waiting for the Pakistani pair to get themselves out and began to try to dismiss them. On their third day of bowling in a row, Mitch Starc, Josh Hazlewood and Jackson Bird lifted tired legs, bent sore backs. They now knew first-hand a truism about the latter-day Gabba pitch, that it improves as it goes and that if you don't win a match on the first three days, you probably won't bowling on days four and five.
Suddenly, happenings, for better and worse. Two balls fizzed past outside edges. A snick flew through slips, a slice agonisingly over Nathan Lyon's fingertips at point. Not so nice, Garry. An lbw decision against Yasir was overturned, a suspected legside 'keeper's catch dropped anyway. The sense of a fated outcome began to solidify until you could touch it. The stand grew to 70, the target narrowed to 40. In the game's lore and legend, indeed in its calculus, 450-plus to win was the four-minute mile, thought beyond human powers.
Lightning struck, twice in the same place. Starc, around the wicket, reared a ball to Shafiq, who could do no more than fend it to gully. So ended one of the great rearguard innings, fit to sit alongside Custer, McKay and Kline, well worth its man-of-the-match award. Yasir gave him a hug. In cricket, a wicket is a ceasefire, and so even the Australians applauded.
Still, a wicket remained, a hope, a prayer. Leicester City, the Western Bulldogs, Cronulla, the Chicago Cubs, the Cleveland Cavaliers and dare we say it, Brexit and Trump, all in the one year, and now Pakistan?
Well, no. Four balls later, Yasir dug out a yorker and stumbled forward a couple of steps. There he stayed, rebuking himself for not scratching out a run, not noticing until too late as Smith picked up the crumbs in slips and threw down the stumps. Smith might not get everything right, but never let it be said that he lacks presence of mind. The living miracle was no more.
It was very Pakistani way to lose. But it had been a very Pakistani way almost to win. They were and remain cricket's great mystics, and on this day, in this match, you could only love them for it.
All sorts of conclusions will be drawn now, contradicting the conclusions drawn two days ago, which in turn countermanded the certainties of a month previously. Ah, cricket. All that can be said for certain is that as this young Australian side tries to map a way forward, about Pakistan it will never quite know what is coming next, because Pakistan itself doesn't, and so their feat here should be left to stand for what it is, no more, no less. So very extraordinarily, so very nearly, the sun rose in the west.