As soon as the catch goes down, you think: of course that catch went down. It's simple enough, travelling fast but straight at slip. Asif Ali gets his hands up late. When the ball bursts through his fingers to deflect for four, you think: of course it went for four.

Of course it did, because Wahab Riaz is bowling. This is what happens to Wahab Riaz. In their World Cup match at Taunton on Wednesday, Australia's captain has monstered Pakistan. Aaron Finch is middling everything, until he edges this one. Wahab gives the delivery his all and draws the mistake, creates the opening to get Pakistan back into the game. In what world would his team follow him through it?

Wahab is a bowler who embodies tragedy. Not in the news bulletin sense but the literary sense: the figure battling against fate, the hero doomed to wander the wilderness. When he strives, his face gets dark with blood and thunder. His run-up is a heave that takes his every atom's worth of energy. He hits the crease like a ship crashing against the shore. He wrecks himself with each delivery and at times he muscles the ball beyond 150 kilometres per hour.

Unlike against England, Wahab Riaz could not drag his team through the gap he opened to get them back into the game. ( AP: Rui Vieira )

He does this on the witheringly hot flat decks of Dubai, or in one-day games where batsmen line up everything for a battering. Occasionally, his efforts have won a match for Pakistan. Most of the time — or this is how it seems — they end with catches going down, or stumps flying from a no-ball, or some other intervention that turns the scene against him just when it should be his.

Mostly, Wahab Riaz seems tired. Beyond tired, the centre of a deep weariness. His face rumples and creases like the leather of a battered briefcase; the worn face of a man who has witnessed too many things. Let's not go wild on symbolism — he's from comfortable stock, the son of a Lahore businessman. But sometimes, when the catch goes down, when the effort is for nothing, his visage seems to convey a more rugged part of Pakistan: a trek across some desolate plain, a freezing night on the Hindu Kush.

After the drop, his captain Sarfraz Ahmed comes to comfort him. A literal arm around him, a long chat as Sarfraz walks to the other end and Wahab walks towards third man. The captain exhorting his bowler to keep striving.

Wahab Riaz had Finch (right) dropped and saw a looping shot to the deep from Warner land safely at third man. ( AP: Alastair Grant )

Wahab especially has this kind of luck against Australia. The way he bowled and batted in the Brisbane Test of 2016 where Pakistan almost pulled off the biggest run chase in history — but didn't. His famous duel with Shane Watson in the 2015 World Cup, where Wahab bowled what was statistically both the shortest and the fastest spell in the tournament from anyone who wasn't Mitchell Starc.

And of course Wahab had a catch dropped that day, and ended wicketless. Of course his spell of brilliant aggression ended with a look-away cut shot from Glenn Maxwell for four and a flat pulled six from Watson. Of course it was another spell where he broke his body only for teammates to break his heart.

Thus the familiarity in this last match at Taunton: the edge, the drop, the parried four, and an over that should have nailed the opposing captain instead becomes one conceding 11.

Later, when David Warner toe-ends to third man, Asif is the fielder again, and the ball takes a slow looping arc that could not be better designed for catching. It plops onto the ground regardless. Wahab kicks at the air and yells. This time Shoaib Malik walks him back to his mark consoling him.

In these moments Wahab Riaz is Sysiphus, heaving a boulder to the summit only to watch it roll back down. He is celebrated and applauded for the efforts, for his feats, for the close-run things, but these are plaudits that come at a steep cost. Remove the stone of shame, attach the stone of triumph.

There is an inherent tragedy to Mohammad Amir, too. The other left-armer. The artistry of his bowling, the opening spell that curves, dips, skims. Foxing and bewitching batsmen. Often those spells don't return wickets. Perhaps they're too good. Later, with the ball softer and the movement gone, the batsmen who've survived make up lost ground.

David Warner eventually departed for 107, caught off the bowling of Afridi. ( AP: Alastair Grant )

But Amir is the stage version of tragedy, all pretty angles and the youthful undoing of a flawed protagonist. Wahab is the modernised cinema remake, thick with gristle and viscera.

In Taunton, Amir makes up the wickets that have gone begging. Wahab, when he gets a chance, takes a catch for Amir. Then Wahab braces himself against the stone once more, rallying for another spell, drawing some consolation with a tail-end nick behind. His captain can now offer catches as well as cuddles.

Pakistan have done brilliantly to haul Australia back from a score that could have been close to 400, bowling them out for 307 instead. It's steep but can be chased. All it will take is some application and calm from the batsmen to back up the work from their bowlers.

A couple of hours later, Wahab is out there in the middle batting at number 9, getting battered with bouncers from Patrick Cummins and Starc. The teammates who shelled his catches are all sitting back in the shed having another slice of lemon cake. (Which is excellent, as it happens.)

Wahab won't go away. His best one-day score is 59. He batters 45 on this occasion, lining up three clean sixes in between being smashed on the gloves, smashed on the arm, swaying out of the way of deliveries and then giving Starc a casual jut of the jaw to ask what the big deal was. He is a fast bowler and understands both ends of the transaction.

Wahab Riaz made 45, exciting runs in Pakistan's chase. ( AP: Alastair Grant )

So when he finally nicks a ball, and the next two wickets follow, he has got Pakistan close enough to underline how much his colleagues didn't do. A few more runs, a couple of catches, and this game would have been his. Instead, it is the previous World Cup again. He has strived, he has impressed, he has fallen short. As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be.

Wahab Riaz is tired. He was born tired and he will always be tired. He bowls with his thinning hair wisping wildly about his head, with sweat dampening the crags of his face, with the weariness seeping from his bones. He bowls like a man who has just spent 36 hours in an airport. He places his hands to the rock, rolling through this life again and again.

With nothing but a rock and a mountain, goes the formulation, the struggle towards the summit is in itself enough to fill a man's heart. You could never accuse Wahab of being happy. But his heart is somehow full enough to turn up for the next game. To run in for the next spell. His heart is full enough to break it anew each time.