Anderson finds old form to rescue England

CRICKET/One-day International: If there is one trait England have retained throughout a bitterly disappointing tour of Pakistan, it is their capacity to astonish. Yesterday, with Christmas around the corner and all the signs pointing to a miserable flight home, they conjured a victory out of the winter mist, stifling Pakistan's serene progress to clinch a low-scoring thriller with the final ball of the tour.

Since the loss of the Test series, the search for positives is all that England have had to sustain them, and even that has been a struggle, as injury, illness and indifference has blunted their competitive edge. But yesterday they found one or two genuine reasons for celebration, not least the continued rehabilitation of James Anderson, whose four for 48 were, by his admission, his best performance for a long time.

It was under the lights at Cape Town in the 2003 World Cup that Anderson shot to prominence, bundling Pakistan to defeat with a performance so precocious he left no room for improvement. Sure enough, the only way was down, and the two years since have been spent in international purgatory, sitting sadly on the sidelines watching his team-mates hog all the glory.

But at 23, time is very much on his side, and as another World Cup approaches he is readying to lead the line once again. Yesterday he struck with the new ball and restricted with the old, producing a blend of slower balls and yorkers that induced panic in Pakistan's lower order, and prompted a complete abandonment of the risk-free, strike-rotation attitude that had been carrying them effortlessly towards their meagre target of 207.

During England's innings, Andrew Flintoff had played as a batsman only after aggravating his troublesome left ankle, and Kabir Ali missing out entirely with a back spasm.

Ali's absence meant a reprieve for Vikram Solanki, who anchored a somewhat funereal innings with 49 from 86 balls as Flintoff plodded alongside him for the most subdued 39 of his career.

It never looked like being enough but then, even in dead rubbers, England never do things the easy way.

So, in the evening during Pakistan's innings, while Yasir Hameed and Mohammad Yousuf had been in harness, they had added 101 for the third wicket with a pair of no-nonsense half-centuries, and England had found themselves being elbowed out of the game. The rate was slow, barely four runs an over, but the progress steady.

The introduction of England's spinners turned the tide. Shaun Udal took his first one-day wicket for a decade when Hameed was stumped for 57, and Ian Blackwell, switching from over to round the wicket with no let-up in accuracy, found bounce and turn to grab three prime scalps in 12 deliveries.

From 152 for three in the 40th over, Pakistan were suddenly floundering on 167 for six, which was no sort of situation for the big-hitters, Shahid Afridi and Abdul Razzaq, to arrive. In theory they could have sealed the match with a few lusty blows, but Anderson sensed the changing mood and accounted for both in the space of five balls, before adding Rana Naved-ul-Hasan one over later just for good measure.

Even so, England still had a game to close out and only one bowler to turn to. With 10 runs to play with, up stepped the nerveless 20-year-old Liam Plunkett, who had already shown a penchant for 50th-over performances by smacking Abdul Razzaq for four, four, six with the final three balls of England's innings.

Plunkett found a sensible line and length, conceding only four runs to cue modest celebrations and a sense of relief.