Irfan Pathan, Danish Kaneria and Salman Butt prior to the start of the fourth day’s play in Lahore on Monday. (AFP)

Lahore: Virender Sehwag smashed a breathtaking unbeaten 247 and stitched an epic unfinished 403-run opening stand (in 75 overs) with captain Rahul Dravid to frustrate Pakistan and restore balance on a record-shattering day of the first Test here on Monday.

The flamboyant Sehwag and rock-solid Dravid (128) put themselves tantalisingly close to breaking the world record opening partnership in reply to Pakistan’s 679 for seven declared, before play was called off early owing to bad light on another truncated day.

India’s new opening pair was just 11 runs short of breaking Vinoo Mankad and Pankaj Roy’s world record against New Zealand in Chennai in 1955-56.

Sehwag smashed one record after another during his 240-ball knock, which contained 40 boundaries and a six, to completely annihilate the Pakistani attack on a featherbed at the Gaddafi Stadium.

The vice-captain notched up his fourth double hundred while Dravid was more sedate on way to his 21st Test century as India scored at a phenomenal 5.37 runs per over, the Delhi marauder doing the bulk of the scoring.

India were still 77 runs short of the follow-on target although the match seems headed for a tame draw with just one day left.

Sehwag led the run-feast by cracking the second-fastest ever double hundred in Test history, off 182 balls with 38 fours, while Dravid followed suit later as the openers waltzed their way against a hapless Pakistan attack.

Another 11 runs added to their stand would also mean India’s highest partnership for any wicket and against any opposition.

Sehwag once again made nonsense of murky conditions by smacking 46 fours and one six while Dravid’s 128 came in 227 balls.

The opening partnership between the duo also became the best-ever for any wicket for India against Pakistan, obliterating the 336-run stand between Sehwag, who then made 309, and Sachin Tendulkar (194 not out) at Multan in the first Test of the last series played here in 2004.

Only New Zealand’s Nathan Astle, who scored a double hundred against England off 153 balls in 2001-02, has a better record than Sehwag in the number of balls taken to reach 200.

Earlier, Sehwag, batting on 96 overnight, reached his 11th century in 40th Test with a lofted drive over mid-off off Danish Kaneria in 93 balls to break Sunil Gavaskar’s 23-year-old mark by a ball.

Former captain Gavaskar had reached his century in 94 balls against Clive Lloyd’s West Indians in the Delhi Test of the 1983 series.

The Delhiite reached the landmark in the second over of an overcast morning after play started 70 minutes later.

It was the Indian vice-captain’s fourth Test century, including a record triple and double tons, in seven Tests against Pakistan and during the course of this innings, he overtook Mohinder Amarnath’s run tally of 1,080 runs in 18 Tests.

Only Gavaskar (2,089 with five centuries in 24 Tests and Dilip Vengsarkar (1284 with two hundreds in 22 Tests) stood ahead of Sehwag ?who had 982 runs to his credit before the start of the series ? in the amount of runs scored against Pakistan.

The duo raised double century stand in the 41st over and in 190 minutes, before the partnership went past the earlier mark of 200 set by Krishnamachari Srikkanth and Gavaskar in the 1986-87 Chennai Test against Pakistan.

This was also India’s second double century stand for the first wicket, following the one by Sehwag and Gautam Gambhir against South Africa at Kanpur in November 2004.

Sehwag treated off spinner Shoaib Malik, who replaced Kaneria after lunch, with scant respect by punching him through the cover region for a boundary and followed that with a step-out loft to mid-wicket and a contemptuous straight-drive off successive balls for fours.

Pak retain squad

Meanwhile, Pakistan on Monday retained the same 15-member squad for the second Test at Faisalabad from January 21 to 25.