England collapse under fierce tidal wave

THE Pakistan team has long been one fuelled on passion rather than pragmatism, capable of touching stratospheric heights and plumbing the lowest depths within the same afternoon. They rely on force. But even by their standards, the tidal wave of adrenalin that carried them to victory in the first Test at Lord's yesterday afternoon was something special.

The match turned around during the course of one frenzied hour's cricket after lunch that saw David Lloyd's British Bulldog - the one that for the previous four hours and more, while Mike Atherton and Alec Stewart were putting together a second wicket partnership of 154, had growled at the intruders - suddenly lost its teeth and rolled over like a pet poodle.

The Mound Stand clock showed three minutes before two o'clock and the scoreboard beneath it 168 for one, when the mayhem began with Atherton's dismissal. Sixty one minutes later, Graham Thorpe was wandering back to the pavilion and the board read 186 for eight. Seven wickets had fallen for 18 runs in 75 balls.

As collapses go, this was in the same class as Norman Wisdom's deckchair.

With the heart and soul knocked out of the England order, Pakistan then took the foot off the gas, allowing the last two wickets to add 57, and it was not until the final over of a delayed tea interval that victory was achieved.

No matter though: the damage had been done earlier, and although there were reports of thunder showers drifting in, Pakistan's decision to bat on for more than an hour in bad light on Saturday evening bought them time. Once the breach had been made it was always under control and "there were 27 overs still remaining when Ian Salisbury hooked at a bouncer from the Pakistan captain Wasim Akram and was caught behind after a spirited but inconsequential 40.

The win, by 164 runs, was only Pakistan's eighth against England, but significantly, their third on this ground. On the second occasion, four years ago, it had been Wasim and Waqar's last ditch stand that had plucked victory from England when it had been there for the taking.

Waqar was there again yesterday, surging irresistibly in from the Pavilion end, and adding three further wickets, including that of the hapless Graeme Hick, to that of Nick Knight on the previous afternoon. Yesterday's 4-85 gave him match figures of 8-154 - wonderful stuff on a slow pitch.

But this was a partnership, for at the other end, the little teaser Mushtaq Ahmed had been plugging away. His was a tribute to persistence, for from the moment in the first innings that he had Alec Stewart leg before wicket before tea on Friday, he had sent down 49 overs without success. It simply could not last, and it did not.

It was a decision, made at lunchtime, to go around the wicket that changed his fortune, for in the space of 57 balls, Atherton had been caught at slip, Stewart taken at silly point, Ealham bowled behind his legs, Thorpe, unluckily, leg before, and Mullally also caught close in on the offside. A haul of 5-57 from 38 overs was magnificent bowling, and few would have argued had he - or indeed Inzamam ulHaq, who batted superbly - received the man of the match instead.

Perhaps England had been seduced by the certainty with which Atherton and Stewart had negotiated the morning's play, for although Waqar had all but been held in reserve to take advantage once a breakthrough had been made, Mushtaq always posed questions and no one is blinded to the potential of Wasim. It was, perhaps, Stewart who was the more impressive however because while we expect this sort of thing from Atherton now, his partner has been teetering on the brink of Test match extinction.

If his batting after Atherton's dismissal for 64 had taken on a more frenetic air, Stewart had played freely and confidently for 261 minutes before Mushtaq spun one out of the rough which bounced from this thigh pad and touched his glove. But his 89 will reinforce his position in the side.

Not so Hick's four runs, for his effort yesterday, taking his sorry run this summer to 43 runs from six innings, was a final indignity, on a career that has promised much and delivered rather less.

It was six balls of torture. Off the second, from Mushtaq, he should have been given out caught at short leg from pad and glove; the fourth, also from Mushtaq, brought him a boundary as he straight drove a full toss. It might well be his last act of aggression in a Test match, for he then found himself facing Waqar, who is not shy about taking candy from kids. One ball pushed him on the back foot as Hick looked for the yorker.

The next, full length, found Hick leaden footed, roared between bat and pad and that was that.

Later, shortly before the end of the match, part of the roof of the small underpass behind the pavilion caved in, and water streamed down. It might have been tears, for this, surely is the end of the line for Hick now, leaving the selectors to sharpen the axe and E.J. Thribb his pencil: So, farewell then . . . . It is time to move on.