Karadas expertly hooked in a Wayne Routledge cross to deny Sam Allardyce’s men, who had taken the lead when Khalilou Fadiga – who missed a first half penalty – scored direct from a free-kick from near the corner flag.

Pompey had the latest two of their nine January signings, Routledge and Argentinian star Andres D’Alessandro in the starting line-up.

But the inclusion of Zimbabwe striker Benjani Mwaruwari was more of a surprise - the day after he had scored for his country in the African Nations Cup in Egypt.

Mwaruwari was flown out of Cairo on an early morning jet and replaced Vincent Pericard in the Pompey line-up, while Richard Hughes and Gregory Vignal were both dropped.

Bolton made three changes from the team that started against Arsenal in the FA Cup fourth round – Nicky Hunt, Matt Jansen and Fadiga returning at the expense of broken foot victim Ivan Campo and substitutes Jared Borgetti and Hidetoshi Nakata.

When Pompey managed to up the tempo they ruffled Bolton’s confident feathers and were able to get the ball forward in attack.

And after a spell of testing the discipline of the Bolton defence, new boys Mwaruwari and D’Alessandro combined for the little South American to blaze an 18-yard shot just over the bar.

In the 36th minute, D’Alessandro executed an outrageous backheel into the area from the right flank and Mwaruwari just failed to make the most of the opportunity.

The Zimbabwean was taking a lot of physical punishment from Bolton central defenders Bruno N’Gotty and Tal Ben Haim but in his second match in 24 hours he showed he could hand it out as well.

Suddenly the game seemed to appeal to D’Alessandro – but a series of extravagant stepovers did not trouble Ricardo Gardner, who waited his moment and stepped in to make a telling tackle.

And it was three minutes before half-time when Jussi Jaaskelainen had to make the first real save of the match, diving low to his right to hold Pedro Mendes’ snapshot from 18 yards.

It would have proved a key moment when, in first-half stoppage-time, Pompey goalkeeper Dean Kiely brought down Stelios Giannakopoulos for a cast-iron Bolton penalty.

But Fadiga, who begged captain Nolan to let him take it, fired high over the bar.

Portsmouth sent on striker Svetoslav Todorov in place of O’Neill at the start of the second half, and he made an almost instant impact.

Todorov cut in from the left past Hunt and fired just wide of the far post with Jaaskelainen at full stretch.

Davis had a shot hacked away and Mendes a follow-up effort deflected behind off one of his own team-mates as Pompey adopted a shoot-on-sight policy.

D’Alessandro, operating mainly on the left, was fouled by Giannakopoulos and curled a vicious, bending free-kick in the 55th minute.

Benjani and Davis both went flying into the six-yard box for it, but the latter’s header was just off target.

Pompey looked the more dangerous team, building a string of attack, but a poor ball by Davis let in Giannakopoulos, who set up Hunt to hoist over a dipping cross that Kiely did well to collect under pressure.

Kiely saved again in the 66th minute from Jansen’s header five yards out.

And two minutes later, D’Alessandro cleverly fed Benjani, whose shot went off Ben Haim for a corner.

Bolton cleared it, and suddenly Jansen was on the run, but with only Kiely to beat, he lost his footing, and despite taking the ball beyond the goalkeeper and out wide, he could not find the angle to put it back on the head of substitute Vaz Te.

With 70 minutes gone, however, Bolton went ahead with a fluke goal direct from a free-kick.

Fadiga was entrusted with it despite his penalty miss in the first half, and his curling effort sailed directly into the far corner of the Portsmouth net, despite Matthew Taylor’s efforts to hook it away.

Just when Pompey looked down and out, though, they mounted a savage late rally in which Todorov had a shot cleared off the line in the 84th minute.

Then a minute later, on-loan Norwegian Azar Karadas – who had replaced Mwaruwari a few minutes earlier -volleyed a spectacular equaliser from a Routledge cross, his first goal for the club.

If Todorov had crossed the ball quickly to him soon afterwards Karadas was in an unmarked position ready to hit the winner.

Bolton had late chances through Vaz Te and N’Gotty – but Pompey held on for what could be a precious point.