Cricket England v Pakistan: A match which had fluctuated so wildly finally went to Pakistan three quarters of an hour after lunch on the final day.
It was a magnificent triumph. Behind by 144 on first innings, having had the advantage of batting first, they recovered brilliantly to set England 198 to win, with the pitch now offering some help to spin and pace alike, and duly bowled them out for 175 to win by 22 runs.
Almost all day from the pavilion end England were tormented by leg-spinner Danish Kaneria, who took four for 62, his googly and top-spin bamboozling every batsman. There were three wickets too for the iconic Shoaib Akhtar, a pest to his team and himself at times but here cranking his pace up towards the sound barrier. There will be no more spectacular delivery all series than the 94mph yorker that blasted Ashley Giles's middle and leg stumps from the Multan soil.
Well as Pakistan bowled - and they played with a fierce collective passion which at times in the past they may not have shown - the England batsmen, with the exception of Marcus Trescothick and Ian Bell to an extent, have been culpable in this game, technically deficient, mentally flabby, and entering the game short of match runs.
Andrew Strauss and Bell batted for a further 40 minutes yesterday morning, extending their second-wicket partnership to 57. Thereafter, until Geraint Jones and the debutant Shaun Udal added 49 for the eighth wicket to fan a glimmer of hope when the game seemed done, it had been a procession, with the heart of the innings punched out by the wickets of Bell, Strauss and Paul Collingwood in the space of eight deliveries.
By the time Kevin Pietersen and Andrew Flintoff had gone, each apparently astounded by the manner in which he had handed over his wicket, England were 101 for six and the game was gone.
It was a hard task for Trescothick to explain quite what had happened. Personally he had a mighty game, his 193 underpinning England's first innings and his captaincy sparky and intuitive. But after the pace bowlers had performed a minor miracle in dismissing Pakistan for 274, the remainder of the batting failed to capitalise as it ought. The door was left ajar and through it slipped man of the match Salman Butt and Inzamam-ul-Haq, who between them constructed the decisive partnership.
"At the start of the day," Trescothick admitted, "I thought we would knock the runs off comfortably. A bit of trouble with the spin maybe, but I expected us to win. Instead, they bowled well and we didn't adapt to the conditions. We will definitely need more application from the batsmen in the second Test, more time spent at the crease."
Trescothick's comment was aimed most pertinently at the heavy middle-order artillery of Pietersen and Flintoff. Both are thunderous in stroke but go hard at the ball in defence. In the first innings Pietersen failed to read Kaneria and succumbed at short leg. Yesterday he opted to take out his natural game (the paradox of Trescothick, incidentally, is that although he encourages application, he does not wish to discourage individual expression) and duly clumped Kaneria over the midwicket boundary. If he gets to double figures, so it is said, he is very hard to shift, so it was a surprise to see the agricultural nature of the tail-end swipe that brought about his downfall.
Perhaps we can interpret "application" as not going against instinct but cutting out anything daft. Flintoff has been colossal with the ball but has struggled with the bat, unable to make head or tail of Kaneria.
Faisalabad will demand a rethink. Vaughan, who has been making good progress in his recovery from his knee injury, seems certain to return, but that will give him and Duncan Fletcher a difficult decision. Paul Collingwood was earmarked for the middle order, not least because his bowling might prove handy. In Multan, though, his batting was found wanting and because the pace attack exceeded expectation his bowling was largely irrelevant.
On the other hand Bell, given a chance only because of Vaughan's incapacity, scored 104 runs. England pride themselves on consistency of selection these days, on giving a bloke a fair go. But there should also be room to admit they got things wrong.
Guardian Service
Scoreboard
Overnight: Pakistan 274 (Salman Butt 74, Inzamam-ul-Haq 53; A Flintoff 4-68) and 341 (Salman Butt 122, Inzamam-ul-Haq 72; A Flintoff 4-88). England 418 (M E Trescothick 193, I R Bell 71; Shabbir Ahmed 4-54) and 24-1.
ENGLAND: Second Innings:
M E Trescothick b Shabbir Ahmed 5
A J Strauss c Hasan Raza b Danish Kaneri 23
I R Bell c Kamran Akmal b Danish Kane 31
P D Collingwood lbw b Mohammad Sami 3
K P Pietersen c Kamran Akmal b M Sa 19
A Flintoff c Younis Khan b Danish Kaner 11
G O Jones b Shoaib Akhtar 33
A F Giles b Shoaib Akhtar 14
S D Udal b Danish Kaneria 18
M J Hoggard not out 0
S J Harmison c Younis Khan b Shoaib Akhta9
Extras b6 lb1 nb2 9
Total (52.4 overs) 175
Fall: 1-7, 2-64, 3-67, 4-67, 5-93, 6-101, 7-117, 8-166, 9-166.
Bowling: Shoaib Akhtar 12.4-1-49-3; Shabbir Ahmed 10-0-25-1; Danish Kaneria 20-0-62-4; Mohammad Sami 9-0-31-2; Shoaib Malik 1-0-1-0.
Pakistan beat England by 22 runs.
