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Cricket is akin to theatre; played out on a stage, where the plot occasionally thickens, the cast always have assigned roles to play, and performances are at a premium, berated or applauded as the case may be by an audience which could be either indifferent or rapt depending on what's happening on stage.

The third day of this Test meandered through the eddies and gullies of predictability until it sparked to life, just before the day was dead. Not that the outcome of this match is in any doubt. What reservations there may have been lurking in the collective mind were swept conclusively away, as Sri Lanka continued to compound their miseries. It was Theatre of the Absurd. After a most dull and dreary second day, the cricket aficionado at the ground had something to gain from having paid for his entry.

Almost predictably and by design, both Ijaz and Inzamam completed their double hundreds. With each run they remorselessly hammered another nail into the Sri Lankan coffin. Whilst doing so, they further cemented their place in the Pakistani middle order. Eat your heart out, Salim Malik.

Two double hundreds ensured that Pakistan almost got to the 600 mark, although I suspect that they would ideally have liked to bat out the day and perhaps midway through the next as well. Something in the region of 700 plus would have shut out Sri Lanka from the match and snuffed out any challenge that they might have been contemplating to mount. The late order perhaps did not do justice to the earlier work done by the upper echelons of the batting society. But then, this is an imperfect world.

In what amounted to a form of Black Humour, Sri Lanka had more misfortunes to tackle. This was not Fat Lady Falling on Ice; but it was quite baroque in its own way. The bizarre lay an inch below the surface. Having bowled Pakistan out for 596, the Sri Lankan captain did not get any respite to ponder on what is, what was and what must be. The Sri Lankan team, already on the floor, then got kicked in the guts by Wasim Akram. The perfect schoolboy bully.

I always maintained that old age and treachery win over youth and enthusiasm. This was the master displaying his art for the world to see. This was Arnold Schwarzenegger and Steven Seagal rolled into one. This was mayhem, this was chaos, this was High Definition Performance. Kennth Tynan would have been lost for words. It was theatrics of the highest order.

Hattricks do not occur every day, least of all in Test matches, and back-to-back hattricks (that too against the same team) match the odds for a hole in one on a designated hole. I don't think there could be any similar comparison. History beckoned and how this great fast bowler responded! He wrote this script and then performed with panache and aplomb. Give him an Oscar, quick.

Spare a thought also for Mahela Jayawardena, an innocent victim of the vicissitudes of this game of cricket. A double hundred in a Test match barely two weeks ago, but now runs avoiding him like the plague. He has managed two ducks in a row, the second one of historic importance. Like Dhaka, he too can bask in some reflected glory, or should that read refracted?

It is said that history repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as a farce. Dhaka, which last saw a Test match thirty years ago, by some strange twist and quirk of fate has got itself into the limelight once again. Because one of the greatest bowlers of all time decided to rewrite history here.

What of the Test then? Well, what of it? Can it last the distance? These are the metaphysical questions.