Williamson, rain give New Zealand a chance

Kane Williamson and sub-tropical Brisbane conspired to give New Zealand a fighting chance of escaping the Gabba with a draw on a fourth day when Australia did not take every chance that came to them.

Play did not resume after tea, which had arrived within moments of Nathan Lyon's critical dismissal of Williamson. Starting as if simply resuming his first innings 140, Williamson was seldom troubled in gliding past 50, but on 59 shaped to pull Lyon and was struck on the upper part of back thigh in front of the stumps. The umpire Richard Illingworth gave it out, and the batsman's review saw the ball grazing the top of the bails.

However, the significance of Williamson's innings, and those of Tom Latham and Martin Guptill, was heightened by the damp evening session, leaving Australia to take another seven wickets in the face of further rainy weather on the final day. To get a draw out of Brisbane would be a major fillip for New Zealand, who have looked underdone in the first Test but may be better placed with another week's training ahead of the second match in Perth.

Australia had been forced to toil hard as Latham, Guptill and Williamson all put a high price on their wickets. They were also unable to make the most of the opportunities, with Guptill twice missed in the field and Australia's captain Steven Smith frustrated at times by his bowlers' inability to bowl to the fields he was setting for them.

Smith had declared shortly before play to set New Zealand 504 to win or more realistically two days' batting to escape with a draw. On an overcast morning, Mitchell Starc and Mitchell Johnson both had the new ball swinging dangerously, and Latham and Guptill did well to survive numerous probing deliveries as a stacked Australian slips cordon waited expectantly.

Guptill was fortunate to survive when he bunted his first ball from Johnson into the midriff of Joe Burns at short leg, but the chance spilled out of fumbling hands. He was again lucky 17 overs later when a back-foot forcing stroke burst through the fingers of Lyon at point.

Latham, meanwhile, escaped one concerted caught-behind appeal when the ball was shown to have brushed his back thigh, and also edged Josh Hazlewood short of first slip. Eventually Starc found a hint of inswing to strike Latham on the toe, minutes before light rain and darkening skies brought an early end to the morning session. The umpire Nigel Llong gave Latham out, and replays showed the ball would have taken a part of leg stump.

On resumption, Williamson was quickly into stride, and Lyon looked the man most capable of breaking through by using the variations in spin and bounce he could extract from a fourth-day pitch. For a time Lyon struggled to get his line right, and when he finally claimed Guptill's outside edge for a catch by Smith after one lbw appeal and review had been turned down, the captain gestured pointedly to a line wider of the off stump.

Lyon bowled better from that point, and found a way through Williamson to tilt the match towards Australia. There was only a matter of centimetres in the ball-tracker verdict, but the good fortune Smith's men enjoyed there was to be offset by the poor weather that followed the interval.