Australia still thinking of victory despite three days on the back foot

Darwin, Australia, 15 Aug-Australia still believe they can find a route to victory in Darwin despite being significantly behind Bangladesh at the end of day three. The home side was four wickets down in the second innings and trailed by 67 at stumps, with Cameron Green and Alex Carey having nursed them to the close with a stand of 39 that will need to swell considerably on Sunday if Australia are to forge a remarkable recovery.

"Once we tick those [runs] off, hopefully we're still four down and you can start to build the pressure," Josh Hazlewood said, on the day he joined the 300-wicket club. "I'm not sure how the wicket will play. Obviously we haven't played much in Test cricket [here].

"It was showing a little bit of signs of up and down. If we can bat deep into tomorrow and potentially even the whole day maybe, there's always opportunities to take 10 wickets on the final day if the wicket is a little bit up and down.

"So [the] win is still definitely in our mind, and always is pretty much. So we'll look to do whatever we can to move towards that."

To win, they would have to overturn their highest first-innings deficit at home of 228 - the previous was the 206 they trailed by against Pakistan at the SCG in 2010 - while there have only been two larger ones anywhere.

The biggest deficit Australia successfully overcame was when they turned trailing by 291 against Sri Lanka in Colombo in 1992 into a 16-run victory, defending a target of 181 in what is a likely model of how they would have to do it in Darwin. That game was famous for the first match-winning impact Shane Warne had in his Test career.

This current Australia bowling attack, which now features its four frontliners with 300 or more Test wickets, would need some collective or individual brilliance to defend a target but whether that becomes an option will depend on the middle order.

Green has the chance to build on a promising innings and ease some of the talk around his position, which won't be the case for Jake Weatherald and Marnus Labuschagne who remain firmly under scrutiny after loose dismissals. Green, however, was millimeters from being dismissed on 12 when an inside edge against Taskin Ahmed grazed leg stump without the force to dislodge a bail.

"You definitely need luck in cricket, that's for sure," Hazlewood said. "I think his intent has been good. He's looked to score from the outset. I thought even in the first innings, it was probably just summing up the situation more so in that time, just before whatever break it was.

"I think he's shown good intent from ball one in both innings. [He] looked to score, put the pressure back on the bowler. Yeah, a little bit of luck goes a long way sometimes. So you never know.

Bangladesh allrounder Mehidy Hasan Miraz, who followed his half-century with the massive wicket of Steve Smith, was confident the visitors could keep the target small, though he acknowledged the opening session of the four day would be vital.

"We are playing on a good wicket so all we want to do is bowl in the right areas," he said. "We have to work hard for each wicket. We had to do a lot to get those four wickets today. We are trying to give away as few runs as possible. If we can take at least three or four wickets within these [67] runs, then we won't have a difficult target coming up.

"We want to give them as few runs as possible. They have a lot of good batters still remaining so getting at least three more wickets is our first priority. I don't want to predict the future, but we must own the first session on day four."Cricinfo