Date-stamped : 02 Sep96 - 06:32 Texaco Trophy: Pakistan bow out on glorious note in final thrill- er By Christopher Martin- Jenkins at Trent Bridge Pakistan (247) bt England (246) by two wickets AFTER two very easy wins for England the third of the Texaco internationals produced the kind of thrilling one-day finish for which the 13,000 at Trent Bridge were longing. Helped by a cru- cial decision by the third umpire, Ray Julian, that Alec Stewart had accidentally knocked off the bails when the last-ditch hero, Rashid Latif, was beaten by a throw from Mike Atherton in the 48th over, Pakistan scrambled home to a two-wicket win with only two balls of their 50 overs remaining. They thereby take home a share of the Texaco booty - #8,000, plus #1,000 awarded to the whole of a reshaped team by the man-of- the-match adjudicator, Tom Graveney. This compared to England`s second #26,000 bonus of the summer for winning the trophy and two of the games. England have been much the more impressive one-day side but a narrow Pakistan win yesterday was, in truth, a more appropriate end to a tour in which they have consistently played attractive, attacking cricket. To the end there were smiles in the middle, even in the heat of the battle. The spirit of the game has re- turned to Anglo/Pakistani cricket, which is the best news of all. Yesterday`s match was a case, really, of Pakistan finding the Anwar to their problems. Nick Knight`s second commanding hundred in two days had set the touring team almost five runs an over to chase but Saeed Anwar and Shahid Anwar rattled up 92 in the first 15 overs and Saeed`s 61 off 59 balls should have allowed those who came after to proceed to a relatively relaxed win. In fact, England fought back tigerishly, with Peter Martin and, for the second day running, Robert Croft and Adam Hollioake, gav- ing nothing away in steady and intelligent spells of bowling. Ijaz Ahmed kept the momentum going with another authoritative in- nings, full of crisp strokes all along the ground but when he hit in the air for the first time and was caught by Graham Lloyd on the deep cover boundary off Darren Gough, 28 runs were still needed with 32 balls left. Knight carried his bat through England`s innings, an exceptional and most accomplished performance, devoid of any of the risky strokes which had attended the early stages of the match at Edg- baston. The equation remained balanced to the end as Rashid alone hit the ball cleanly. Hollioake`s cool bowling and tight fielding by an inner ring expertly marshalled by Atherton produced any number of scrambled singles and near misses. Hitting or missing the stumps with the throws from close range is the factor which so often de- cides these tight finishes and England still miss too often. Mever mind. They, like Pakistan, finished on a high note and in Hollioake they have found another cricketer of sturdy temperament as well as build. The straightness of his bowling and the clever changes of pace proved more effective than his batting, the department of his game which looks the stronger in the two- innings game. It would be unwise to place too much emphasis on two limited-overs performances - who, for example, would have predicted Alistair Brown`s eclipse after his hundred against In- dia at Old Trafford? - but Hollioake made a stronger case for himself than Ronnie Irani over the weekend. Knight carried his bat through England`s innings, an exceptional and most accomplished performance, devoid of any of the risky strokes which had attended the early stages of the match at Edg- baston. He became only the third England player, following David Gower and Graham Gooch, to make successive hundreds in one-day internationals. Hitting powerfully through the off side off ei- ther foot, he hit eight of his 11 fours in his first fifty but seldom failed to score off any ball afterwards in reaching three figures off 120 balls, the same number as the previous day. Stewart went in the third over, playing too early at Wasim Akram, and Atherton, surprised by the pace and bounce achieved by the lissome young Shahid Nazir, had to retire hurt in the 13th over after a blow on his right thumb. He returned after the fall of the fifth wicket to bat with encouraging freedom before striking Wasim to mid-off, but Knight was dominating to the end and singu- larly unfortunate to be on a losing side. Source :: Electronic Telegraph (http://www.telegraph.co.uk) REPORT: Rediff on the Net Pakistan salvage pride with win in final Texaco outing Pakistan must easily rank as the most enigmatic of cricketing sides - especially in the shorter version of the game. Here is a side that has in Aamir Sohail and Saeed Anwar probably the most lethal opening combination in the business - a pairing that ranks, for sheer destructive ability, right there with Sri Lanka`s Sanath Jayasuriya and Romesh Kaluwitharana. Coming in at one drop is the prolific Ijaz Ahmed - a batsman who can build an innings, or blast away at the bowling, as the situa- tion demands. Followed by Inzamam ul Haq, the man who spearheaded Pakistan`s win in the 1992 World Cup with strokeplay rarely seen at that level of cricket. Salim Malik, one of the most experi- enced players on the international circuit today. Wasim Akram, who bids fair to don Imran`s mantle as an outstanding fast bowler who can be merit a place in the side for his batting alone. Rashid Latif, whose unorthodox hitting ranks him on par with the great wicket-keeper batsmen like Alan Knott, Rodney Marsh and Jeffrey Dujon. As for bowling, a side that boasts Wasim Akram, Waqar Younis, Mushtaq Ahmed and the brilliant teenager Saqlain Mushtaq should, by rights, be embarassed by its own riches. It is not even as though the batsmen and bowlers are out of form - both at Lord`s and the Oval during the recent Cornhill Test series, the Pak frontline batsmen got runs at a pace that would have been startling even in the one day format, while the bowlers displayed the ability to rip through batting sides in double quick time. Why then does Pakistan find itself on the losing end of a 2-1 scoreline in the three game Texaco one-day series? Why did it, in all three games, get off to promising starts only to collapse - losing two matches even though the asking targets were well within its scope, and winning the final one on Sunday by the skin of its teeth after looking, at one stage, as though it would take the game in a canter? One possible explanation is that the enormous mental effort the team put in to take the Test series left the players too drained for the one-dayers that followed - after all, Pakistan has been on a winning binge in both the Tests, and in the Tetley Challenge Series of fixtures against the leading county sides. And you don`t play three and five day fixtures, your every sense alert for the first glimmer of winning opportunity, without feeling jaded at the end of it all. But that, really, is no excuse for an international side - and that is what makes Pakistan`s performance in the Texaco series intriguing. More so, in context of the fact that this team is next slated to take on India over five games for the Sahara Cup, in Toronto, Canada. Having been comprehensively beaten in the first two Texaco games, one expected Pakistan to make an all out effort to win the third one and prevent a whitewash. And when England batted, a second century in two innings by Nick Knight did not prevent Pakistan from turning in a good, competent bowling performance to reduce the home side to 246 on a batting wicket where the ball came off the pitch with even bounce - ideal conditions for the strokeplayers in the touring side. The Pakistan bowling performance owed much to the two pace spear- heads, Wasim Akram (3/45) and Waqar Younis (2/49). Though Wasim did get the initial breakthrough when he induced the free- scoring Alec Stewart to pop up a return catch with the score on 10, both fast bowlers disappeared for plenty in the initial 15 overs. This is something Akram will need to think about, when Pakistan takes on India and, later in September, goes over to Kenya for a quadrangular that involves besides the host nation, Sri Lanka and South Africa. Given the sheer pace he and Waqar bowl at, batsmen are always likely to hit over the top in the initial overs, using the momentum of the two fast bowlers to beat the close-in field. An Aamir Sohail to open the innings with maybe Salim Malik in support could be a good ploy - opening batsmen hate having to play dibbly-do bowlers whose deliveries they have to wait for. Saqlain Mushtaq, again, was brought in during the first 15 overs - and, as in the second Texaco match at Trent Bridge on Saturday, went for plenty. When he returned for his second spell, though, the youngster found in the spread out field the cover he needed, and bowled with guile to return figures of 2/35 - again, the tim- ing of Saqlain`s introduction to the bowling crease could well be re-thought, as Mushtaq Ahmed (rested for the third game) is far more experienced in the one day format and thus, more likely to contain batsmen during the first 15 overs. England`s innings, apart from Knight`s second successive century in one-dayers - the last time an Englishman performed the feat was Graham Gooch, against Australia in 1995 - was pretty indis- tinguished. Knight, however, is just the sort of attacking bats- man who, with the in-form Alec Stewart in support, can turn the normally sedate England batting plan on its head and get them off to a cracking start. Knight`s innings propelled England to 246 all out, the last wick- et falling off the last ball of the 50th over. It was by no means a challenging total and the two Anwars at the top of the Pak bat- ting lineup - Saeed Anwar, riding his phenomenal form of this summer, and Shahid Anwar, upped to the top slot in preference to the out of form Aamir Sohail, laughed at it with an opening partnership of 93 in 12 overs that was punctuated by scintillat- ing strokeplay. Anwar, in particular, is almost impossible to bowl to in this kind of form - anything wide is driven with a scything swing of the bat, anything up to the bat is punched through the straight field, and any ball near his legs is whipped away with a wristy flick that brooks no stopping. After Anwar left, Ijaz Ahmed - who, in the mould of Javed Mian- dad, is a past master as pushing the ball into the gaps and upsetting the rhythm of a bowling side - took over and though Saeed Anwar departed (for 61, with the Pak total on 114), bowled by a beauty from Peter Martin, Ijaz in company with Aamir Sohail looked to have the game won in a canter. Why Atherton preferred Ronnie Irani to Adam Hollioake, especially considering that in the Trent Bridge the latter had taken 4 for 23 while Irani, with a clever mixture of long hops and full- tosses, had the batsmen confused about which particular part of the ground to make him disappear into, I will never know. In the event, Irani came on, duly disappeared for 12 runs in two overs, and Atherton finally gave the ball to Hollioake. 27 balls later, his brand of looping inswingers bowled at a pace a shade below medium had bundled out Sadab Kabir, Asif Mujtaba and Wasim Akram.earlier. Ijaz Ahmed has played enough one day cricket to know that even at 187/5, the game was winnable if he just hung in there and played out the overs. Instead, Ijaz went for a heave that ended up in the hands of deep extra cover, and it looked as though for the third time in a row, Pakistan were going to snatch a glorious de- feat from the jaws of certain victory. Then came, for me, the most astounding moment of the match. In the most eventful over seen in recent times. Hollioake was given the ball for the final over. Saqlain Mushtaq asked for a runner, and was turned down. He lifted one to Mathew Maynard, and the Glamorgan skipper made no mistake. Meanwhile, the batsmen had crossed over. Rashid Latif pushed the ball into space, and ran one, then scampered through for the second run that would have tied the game. But failed to make it by the proverbial whisker. Umpire David Shepherd raised his finger to signal Latif`s doom, then almost as an afterthought turned it into a dumb-charade mime indicating that he was passing the buck to the third umpire. Ray Julian - the umpire doing duty before the television set - must have studied the replay with care - that is, after all, what he is appointed to do. Latif, meanwhile, was so convinced he was out, that he began walking back to the pavilion. Just as he was at the gate, up goes a roar from the crowd. Latif looks up at the lights, sees the green one smiling at him, and grins right back at it in surprise, and obvious pleasure. No one watching TV could figure out what Julian saw the rest of us didn`t - Latif was quite clearly out, but for this once, fortune favoured the naive. Back came the keeper to the middle and, with the scores all square, calmly pushed Hollioake`s fourth ball for the needed sin- gle. Pakistan had won by two wickets, with two balls to spare. And Julian had left us with food for some thought. The electronic eye, aka the third umpire, is intended to ensure that his two colleagues out there in the middle do not succumb to human error. So what happens when the third umpire, with the benefit of as many slo-mo replays from as many angles as he wants, goofs big? Copyright 1996 Rediff On The Net All rights reserved Source :: Rediffusion on the Net (http://www.redifindia.com/) Contributed by The Management (help@cricinfo.com)