Time for some real perspective about Taylor's triple ton

I find it a great shame that with this historic return to Pakistan, most trips down memory lane regarding Australian series there are inevitably dominated by Mark Taylor’s triple century – an innings that exerted no impact on the series whatsoever.

Either side of that mundane Peschawar bore fest, there were at least half a dozen much more meaningful innings by Saeed Anwar, Michael Slater, Steve Waugh, Aamir Sohail, Mark Waugh and Ijaz Ahmed.

Saeed Anwar’s 145 was more than half his team’s total on the very first day of the series – without it, Pakistan are never even in the series to begin with.

Without Slater’s and Steve Waugh’s tons in the first Test, Australia’s quest for their first series win in Pakistan in nearly 40 years already ends when it has barely yet even begun.

Aamir Sohail’s century in Pakistan’s first innings of the deciding third test was virtually a complete replica of his opening partner Saeed’s in the first Test: more than half his team’s relatively modest total, and without it, his team concedes the series then and there.

Without Mark Waugh’s ton in Karachi, Pakistan, with much the same line up, are chasing comfortably less than they had successfully chased down on the same ground four years earlier, and for Australia it is a case of so near and yet still so far as Pakistan square the series.

This now leaves just Ijaz Ahmed’s on the very last day of the series.

I won’t refer to it as a match-saving century because, with his team not attempting to chase the well out of reach target, runs were completely irrelevant.

However, it was certainly a match-saving innings, and what was extremely relevant was the number of potential wicket-taking deliveries he burnt up – 247, after he had come in at first drop in the fourth over of the day, and seen three more partners depart before lunch.

I wonder has anybody ever stopped to think about the hypothetical scenario where Taylor makes only fractionally more than an even hundred, or even a duck on that horrendously flat featherbed up near the Khyber Pass?

In this alternate history, I am going to assume that every other player on both teams still does what they did, adding only a little conservative speculation for Ricky Ponting, who was unbeaten on an effortless 76 with Taylor, and of course Ian Healy and the tail who never batted in that first innings.

Scenario 1 – Taylor is dismissed on the last ball of Day 1

In this scenario, based on the percentage of runs he scored in the remainder of his partnership with Taylor on the second day, I am going to say that Justin Langer’s 19 runs to go from his overnight 97 to 116 coincides with Mark Waugh’s 42 and Steve’s 1.

Remembering with every other player doing exactly the same, then the assumption remains that every 21-22 Australian runs is an extra. Therefore, after this mini collapse that sees the aforementioned three players depart within a sport space of time, Ian Healy joins Ponting, who is yet to score, with the total reading 5 for 269.

Ponting, who made 76 not out in the real events, can quite easily make another 30 on top of that. Healy, who made tough runs when needed in both the first and third Tests, together with the tail can just about match Ponting, and so Australia total 470.

Based on the scoring rate on the second day of 3 runs per over, Pakistan’s innings begins not at the start of Day 3, but rather 20 overs before stumps on Day 2. They reach 9 for 580 not just before stumps on Day 4, but in fact right on tea earlier that same day. Australia’s 5 for 289 off 88 overs then takes them to tea on the final day, adding in another over or two and Steve Waugh reaching his 50.

Ricky Ponting. (James Knowler/Getty Images)

So, with one session remaining in the match, Australia are 5 for +180 and the game is still on exactly the same course, and it looks like Pakistan won’t even get a tokenistic second bat.

Scenario 2 – Taylor makes a duck

Slater is still out for 2, but Langer, the Waughs, and Ponting recalibrate their partnerships so that Ponting is on 76 when Ian Healy joins him with the team total on 5 for 248 about half an hour into the second day. I will still make the conservative assumption that Ponting adds another 30, while Ian Healy is not out on the same score when he departs, the score now reading 6 for 311.

From there, Healy can double his score to 60, and the tail, together with another couple of extras can get Australia’s total up to a very respectable 370. Pakistan’s innings begins 53 overs before stumps on the extended second day and ends at lunch on Day 4, and, hence, this time, Australia are 5 for 290 at lunch on the final day.

The only difference is that this time, their real score is 5 for +80 and an additional session of playing time remains in the match.

With 57 overs remaining in the match after a change of innings is factored in, I will assume that the Australian innings continues at the same run rate of 3.3 per over.

Pakistan will need to take to capture the remaining 5 Australian wickets within 22 overs, so that they are not faced with a more difficult run chase than 155 off 35 overs.

So, the equation is this: in this second of these alternate time lines, the first 26 hours of the match have seen wickets fall at a rate of one every 65 minutes, but now, Pakistan need to take wickets from this point onwards of one every 18 minutes.

Good luck with that, as I feel Glenn McGrath just might fancy a promotion up the order on this pitch …

Tubby was one of my favourite players. He was a fine opening batsman, one of the finest slips fielders and, for mine, the best captain Australia has had. He played many innings of far more importance to a series than that pointless Peschawar knock.

I was at the Gabba for at least five of them: ones that spring readily to mind are his 59 on the first day of the 1994-95 Ashes, 72 on the first day a year later against Pakistan and 43 a year later against the West Indies out for revenge, his second wicket partnership with Ponting taking the score almost to 150.

The remaining two are his 112 on the first day of the 1997-98 Test against New Zealand when all was crumbling around him, and a similar situation a year later against England when he only personally made it as far as 46 when runs were extremely difficult to come by all day.

There were others that I only saw on television, and, of course, I followed his wonderful batting in England in 1989 late at night on radio, at boarding school, all the while in fear of the brothers appearing out of nowhere at any moment.

But more than enough already about that 334. It wasn’t even the seventh best innings of that particular series, and without it, the result of the match doesn’t change at all – whether he gets a duck or makes it to 112 before getting out at the end of the first day.