West Indies 137 and 54 for 5 (Louis 13, Sajid 4-25) need 197 more runs to beat Pakistan 230 and 157 (Masood 52, Hurraira 29, Warrican 7-32)

The warnings were there. The day began with Pakistan’s best spinner falling off the first delivery of the day as Saud Shakeel clipped one to short midwicket. Warrican followed that up with the wicket of Rizwan in the following over and, on a pitch where grip and spin became increasingly variable, Pakistan’s batsmen found it hard work.

Kamran Ghulam had hung on until then, but some extra turns pulled his outside edge to give Warrican his first five-wicket haul in Test cricket. West Indies began to dig in as Warrican grew in confidence. He varied his pace to catch Noman Ali in front of the stumps as he tried a reverse sweep before reaching seven when Sajid miscued a stroke and got a backward edge.

The ninth wicket didn’t register directly on Warrican’s account, but it might as well have. Salman Ali Agha pushed one to him offside before hitting a single, but Warrican picked up cleanly and hit the stumps straight, catching Khurram Shahzad well out of his crease. The innings ended when Salman tried to go over the top to Gudakesh Motie only to find long off and Pakistan were all out for 157.

But the West Indies still had around 15 overs before lunch and Pakistan have all but made victory certain in this time. Visitors began with positive intentions, having realized that poking and prodding would get them nowhere. That saw them through the first four overs, but as Sajid said after day two, the strategy was to attack with the ball and defend with the field. Brathwaite used the stroke sweep to good effect, leaving Pakistan with a fielder at deep midwicket and it was him that the opener picked to give the West Indies their first breakthrough.

With a superb turn, especially to the right-hander outside the footmarks, the stumps were always in play and it helped Sajid clean up Mikyle Louis and Kavem Hodge to reduce the West Indies to 37 for 4. Noman, who surprisingly had not opened the bowling from the other end, came into the attack and picked up a wicket in a moment of lunch when Justin Greaves missed a sweep fraught with risk in front of middle stump.

Pakistan are halfway to victory in this last innings and on a surface like this one suspects the second half may follow quite quickly.