It was a wild fourth day, in which a series of astonishing incidents added to a startling core plot - that the young West Indies, flayed and hapless in the first three Tests, were making impressive progress towards not only winning a match but breaking one of cricket's most formidable records in the process.

Away from the scoreboard, there was the throwing imbroglio surrounding West Indian quick Jermaine Lawson, who was placed on report for a suspect action.

There was a heated row between Australian paceman Glenn McGrath and West Indian batsman Ramnaresh Sarwan, which looked worse than it was.

And there was a break in play for several minutes as glass bottles rained onto the field after Ridley Jacobs's unlucky dismissal, which raised Australia's hopes of becoming the first visiting team to whitewash the West Indies.

But through it all the local batsmen made a steady, determined charge towards their imposing target of 418, and they did not need a miracle from Brian Lara to do so.

With Lara scoring only 60 and Sarwan a deserved century, the West Indies rose to the challenge.

After a comfortable position of 4-288 turned grave through the loss of Sarwan and Jacobs in successive balls, they fought back through another century-maker, Shivnarine Chanderpaul, and youngster Omari Banks to be 6-371 with a day left.

Having scored 324 in the day despite needing only two runs an over, and with Chanderpaul unbeaten on 103 and cool off-spinner Banks on 28, the West Indies looked more than capable of making the remaining 47 runs to eclipse India's 28-year-old world record of scoring 406 to win a Test match.

Still, nothing could be taken for granted, though improvement was needed for the Australians to conjure a victory.

Most Australian bowlers offered too many loose balls when something other was needed. This was a possible symptom of this being the last Test in a campaign that began in August, and the second of back-to-back matches in which the Australians have spent many hours in the field.

After Lara clashed with several Australians on Saturday, things continued to simmer on Monday as Sarwan moved to a fighting century, along the way giving as good as he received in the verbal campaign.

As Sarwan and Chanderpaul built a 123-run partnership that rebuffed Australian expectations of proceeding to victory after Lara's undisciplined dismissal by Stuart MacGill, matters reached boiling point during the middle session. McGrath, having been thrashed for 21 runs in two overs, objected to the way Sarwan responded to his baiting, storming towards the 22-year-old in a finger-pointing outburst.

McGrath, who missed the first two matches of the series while wife Jane began treatment for cancer, also complained to umpire David Shepherd.

The incident looked particularly unsavoury, especially when microphones picked up McGrath complaining that Sarwan had made a reference to his wife.

But, Sarwan's reference was later confirmed to be not the insensitive cancer-related barb many had assumed, though it was of the lewd nature.

With the new ball two overs old, Brett Lee caught Sarwan off his own bowling following a rash attempt at a pull shot, then Jacobs was given out by umpire Shepherd, caught behind off the next delivery, though the ball struck him on the elbow.

The large crowd, sensing hopes that an epic victory was being pulled from under it, let its loathing be known after the replays, and Lee had to wait several minutes for his hat-trick attempt while bottles were cleared from the field.

Banks survived the delivery, and on two had a let-off that may have cost Australia the match, first slip Martin Love spilling an unremarkable chance after Lee had found a genuine edge.