Date-stamped : 08 Aug96 - 22:28 Test # 1331 England v Pakistan, 2nd Test Headingley, Leeds 8,9,10,11,12 August 1996 ====> REPORT (Day 1, 8 August 1996) Ijaz seizes the moment with dashing intent Mark Nicholas A TEST match, surprisingly for a game which may last five days, can turn in just a few moments. Mostly these moments come when the jostling for position is done and the heavy artillery moves in, rather as Waqar Younis and Mushtaq Ahmed did on the Monday afternoon at Lord`s. Sometimes they come when they are least ex- pected, when instinct and flair replace the conventional course of events, rather as it did with Ian Botham`s joyous bat on this very Yorkshire ground 15 summers ago. Yesterday at noon, after an hour of playing at England`s new ball and of frequently failing to hit it, Pakistan were 31 for one and doubtless relieved at their limitation of damage. After all, England had won the toss and Andrew Caddick had re- warded the selectors` faith in his mercurial talent with a siz- zling and accurate first spell. Yet, by 20 minutes past 12, Ijaz Ahmed had turned the thing on its head. In one 11-ball burst, Pakistan`s No 3 batsman flayed six boun- daries, five from Chris Lewis, who was missing the venom and the penetrating length he had shown against India, and one from Do- minic Cork, who strangely during the morning session was missing, full stop. Not all the strokes were as Ijaz hoped, but the dazzling mix of square-cuts which whizzed through point, pulls which flew over midwicket and edges that screamed over the slips was enough to establish the initiative and remind the meek that attack can serve well as defence. Suddenly Pakistan had 70 on the board and the England captain, painfully aware that the pitch still had plenty to offer his bat- tery of seam, had no option but to retreat. Suddenly indeed his, not Pakistan`s, was the exercise in damage limitation. As Ijaz struck out, so England strained in their frustration. That Ijaz went on to play an important, uninhibited innings of 141 was icing on his cake, for though his highest Test match score would have made him proud, it was during this 20 minutes that he would have seen a sag come to English shoulders and a spring to the step of his brave 18-year-old partner, Shadab Ka- bir. As Ijaz struck out, so England strained in their frustration. A good bowling length became short of a length, a tight, control- ling off-stump line became a messy, general direction. Single- handedly Ijaz altered the balance of play. Collectively, Eng- land were unable to respond. England had not expected this from Ijaz. Remember that he was the batsman who returned red-faced to the pavilion in the first in- nings at Lord`s after having lost his middle stump to Cork after finding his feet in a jumble and stumbling with embarrassment too far to the off side. But credit to Ijaz for he is a man who knows how to make the most from his luck. He might not even have been in England had illness to Saeed Anwar in Australia last winter not allowed him to be called as a replacement, and to grab his chance by making a match-winning hundred in Sydney and another in Christchurch, as if telling the selectors they were goons for not having him there in the first place. He has never completely convinced selectors, not since his inter- national debut way back in 1986, because his batting is unortho- dox and not always attractive. But, as he proved yesterday, he scores in places which are tricky to protect and has a method, with that open-faced bat and a wood-carver`s way of wielding it, which infuriates the opposi- tion, erodes their discipline and dampens their fire. ====>REPORT (Day 2, 9 August 1996) Second Test: Pakistan rub England`s noses in dirt Christopher Martin-Jenkins at Headingley ENGLAND`S one-paced bowling attack, long since reduced to a weary bowling defence, finally took the last wicket of the Pakistan side they had put into bat on Thursday at 4.36 on Friday. By then Moin Khan, recalled to the Pakistan line-up only at the last mo- ment as substitute wicketkeeper for the injured Rashid Latif, had completed an enterprising third Test hundred and well and truly rubbed England`s noses into the Headingley dust. The all too predictable sequel was the early dismissal of Mike Atherton, whose conviction that England`s chances of winning would best be served by picking only four bowlers, all fast, had been confounded by determined batting, largely innocuous bowling and, most pertinently of all, a pitch which played perfectly well. Deftly caught by Moin off an inside edge as his rival captain, Wasim Akram, brought a ball back late, Atherton walked off disconsolately with only 14 on the board in reply to Pakistan`s 448. As he did so deafening bells began ringing in the pavilion, a false alarm as it turned out, but a sign entirely symbolic of England`s desperate plight. To their great credit Alec Stewart and Nasser Hussain, confront- ed, naturally enough, by attacking fields, met the crisis with immensely positive batting. Stewart played with all his former authority in reaching his fourth fifty in as many matches since his return to the side for the second Test of this season. He has hit eight fours so far in scoring 52 off only 68 balls, but he well knows that only part of his job is done. Hussain had more anxious moments in his first confrontation with a full Pakistan Test attack. Twice Wasim trapped him on the back foot, but both times David Shepherd correctly assessed that the ball was missing the stumps. More luck was required when, at the other end, Hussain, then 29, swept at Mushtaq Ahmed, missed and was struck on the back leg by a ball which appeared to be heading for the middle stump. The weather may take a hand this weekend and the pitch is prov- ing, as was always likely by its look and feel, a good one. Mercifully for England`s chances of making at least the 249 they need to avoid a follow-on, Steve Bucknor gave him the benefit of his doubt and England finished the day on a positive note, having started it by dropping a straightforward catch. They are 104 for one, still 344 runs behind. The weather may take a hand this weekend and the pitch is proving, as was always likely by its look and feel, a good one. But they are a long way from safety. Three times in Anglo-Australian Tests in the 1980s a substantial first-innings total at Leeds was no surety against defeat. Waqar Younis has conceded 37 in four overs but he will be more dangerous when the shine has gone from one side of the ball and perhaps, too, if or when the groundstaff move the carpet on which the logo of the sponsors, Cornhill Insurance, is painted. Nailed into the turf, it is about 30 yards back from the stumps, where Waqar starts his run-up. The logos are there to catch television`s wide-angle shot, but there was a request from the Pakistan dressing room last night to move them back. There was little else to disturb their equanimity, for all Stewart`s authority. Their last four wickets, after all, had tak- en their total from 266 to 448, the reward for an assured and determined partnership of 122 between the impish Moin and his equally confident but far less inventive overnight partner, Asif Mujtaba. They made a nice contrast as they worked off the shine of the second new ball during a morning in which only 69 runs were ad- ded. Moin, dropped at long leg by Alan Mullally off Andrew Cad- dick, the most deserving and unfortunate of England`s bowlers, used a squash player`s eye and strong right wrist to work the ball into gaps, while Mujtaba concentrated on a compact defence. England tried to tempt him outside the off stump, but he was as patient and incorruptible as Job. Moin had made 54 by lunch, with six fours, any number of quickly-taken singles and a bottom-handed straight-drive straight back over Dominic Cork`s head. He proceeded to his 105 afterwards with utter confidence against bowling now intent only on limiting the damage. Cork`s third five-wicket analysis was by some dis- tance his most expensive, gained with rather too much bombast to- wards the end of the innings. ====>REPORT (Day 3, 10 August 1996) Second Test: Opener arrests England decline Scyld Berry sees the home side ease past the follow-on target thanks to much-improved batting ENGLAND may be as clumsy as ever when offered an initiative, and just as capable of the dreadful when in the field. But when the time arrives for resolute batting to save a match in which they have hitherto squandered the advantage, their recent improvement has been distinct. In averting the follow-on here England were assisted by a slow pitch of unwontedly even bounce so far. The dampness here - morning rain delayed the resumption by an hour - and a softer surface than Lord`s also reduced the reverse-swing of Waqar Younis, and allowed Alec Stewart to conduct an admirable reply to Pakistan`s total of 448. For Stewart, though, it nearly did not happen. In the 1992 home series against Pakistan he was batting at his peak, after hit- ting four hundreds in five Tests and car- rying his bat through the reverse-swinging mayhem of England`s second innings at Lord`s. Then he was forced to wear a larger pair of gloves that acted as a straitjacket upon his batting, and his subse- quent career never progressed except on the last tour of the West Indies when he was temporarily unencumbered. Yet for this Test the selectors again thought of making Stewart keep wicket. Had he done so, he would not have opened England`s innings with his aplomb of old and guided his side out of the leaderless despondency in which they have so often sunk after an early dismissal of Mike Atherton. Stewart`s eighth hundred for England was his first since the second Test of 1994, since when he has played 18 Tests. The persona of the post-keeping Stewart is not so ebul- lient now, no longer the hint of Australian brash. Instead he has developed a mature capacity for disciplined shot- selection, especially against spin, to eliminate those `soft` dismissals. His overnight stand with Nasser Hussain lasted only briefly, un- til Hussain was deceived by Waqar`s change of direction - to round the wicket - and of pace, a slower off- break drawing Hussain into a premature push. But the tone had al- ready been established by this pair, undaunted as they had been on Fri- day, and from there all that England wanted was more of the same. Although Mushtaq tried his attack from around the wicket, the footmarks were not what they had been on the last day at Lord`s. This situation made an unusual one for Graham Thorpe, who usually comes in when two cheap wickets have gone and Atherton is hanging on. This time, his county cap- tain in charge, he was expected to be second fiddler, which did not quite suit him as he batted through 20 overs before a bat-pad to short-leg. John Crawley, though, was content to grow in Stewart`s shadow and to rehabilitate himself in Test cricket after too long a gap. Pakistan finally succeeded in changing the ball but not their luck or the calm authority of England`s fourth-wicket pair. At 215 for three Waqar came on for a last `throw` but Crawley and Stewart were equal to the yorkers which had un- dermined Graeme Hick. Crawley square-drove Waqar to pass the initial tar- get of 249, and reached his own fifty in the same over, be- fore edging a catch behind. Although Mushtaq tried his attack from around the wicket, the footmarks were not what they had been on the last day at Lord`s. He and the slow left-armer Asif Mujtaba contained but Stewart was more careful in kicking the ball away and, enjoying the occasional pull, he advanced to his highest Test score in England since his 190 at Edgbaston in 1992. Nick Knight settled in as Stewart`s fifth partner. It was a shrewd move of the selectors to position at No 6 an opening bats- man to counter Waqar`s reverse-swing, and a left-handed one to counter Mushtaq. The lack of seam movement yesterday, and in the second half of Friday, lent support to those who still believe that England should have bowled first, with an attack of four seamers. It was not the captain who got it wrong but his bowlers, by pitching too short in the first session and too wide in the second. England were indeed guilty of putting all their eggs in one basket, but it was the only realistic basket avail- able. In the first Test they had chosen four seamers and Ian Salisbury, and they could not dismiss Pakistan twice, on a Lord`s pitch more favourable to Salisbury than this one. What is more, their selec- tion left a gaping hole in England`s middle order through which Waqar and Mushtaq rode to victory. England`s selection and strategy for Lord`s was worse than here. Where England made an avoidable error was in the composition of their seam attack, and particularly in their treatment of Chris Lewis. At bottom, what has to be criticised is the system of county cricket which has left England without any attack- ing spinner of proven international standard. England`s fast- medium seam- swing bowling is their only bowling strength. Where England made an avoidable error was in the composition of their seam attack, and particularly in their treatment of Chris Lewis. A sensitive soul, almost delicately so, and obvi- ously concerned about his fitness after a year lost to injury, he should not have been brought back when anything less than match-hard fit in mind and body. If England were satisfied that Lewis was right, he should cer- tainly not have been demoted to third seamer at short notice. He was built up as England`s strike bowler, and did the job willing- ly and well against India. But here the new ball was taken from him, and he was assigned to bowl up the hill. Such demotion, and so public a vote of no- confidence, when combined with his presently brittle confi- dence, resulted in an under- performance which handed the initiative of this match to Pakistan from Lewis`s opening spell. While Andy Caddick bowled his best, he was also a questionable choice, for he tends to an overseas length and Headingley has demanded that the bowlers should above all pitch the ball up to let it seam. Alan Mullally remains as steady as Mike Hen- drick, if no more likely to take five wickets in a Test innings. It will only be after this match that we will know the full ex- tent of Cork`s injury and bravery after banging into the old pavilion at the outset - he should take a mo- ment to talk to the new first-class umpire Jeremy Lloyds, whose Gloucestershire career was effectively ended when he dived into a boundary board. Cork, who has since used his left hand whenever possible to hold the ball, has dismissed his right wrist as "a little bit stiff", a valiant under- statement to avoid giving en- couragement to Pakistan. Only if the weather holds off is there a chance of a definite result, and then cloud-cover - absent before last evening - will be required if wickets are to clatter. It looks as though England will be seeking one of their Oval redemptions to save this series. They have not lost a Test on their now- favourite ground since, well, since they last met Pakistan there. ====>REPORT (Day 4, 11 August 1996) Second Test: Knight`s move for maiden Test century checkmates Pakistan By Christopher Martin-Jenkins THE WEATHER and Andy Fogarty`s excellent Headingley pitch have combined to create virtually a certain draw in the second Test. England, with an admirable team bat- ting perfor- mance and two outstanding individual innings by Alec Stewart and Nick Knight, have seized the initiative handed to their opponents by inconsistent bowling on the first day. However, even with a fifth bowler their chances of rattling through Pakistan`s bat- ting today would have been slim. You can never be quite sure, of course. The last time England scored 500 against Pakistan, at Edgbaston nine years ago, their opponents were 38 for no wicket in their second in- nings when the last day started and apparently immune from defeat. In the event they were bowled out for 205 and Eng- land only narrrowly failed in a mad dash to win the match in the fi- nal session of play. Knight`s maiden hundred yesterday, in his fifth Test, was an innings memorable both for the quality of his strokes and the complete assurance with which he played them. It enabled England to score their fifth highest score at Head- ingley and establish a first-innings lead of 53 before their last wicket fell 10 overs after tea on the fourth day. Pakistan were a tired side by then and the England bowlers were queuing up eagerly for a second chance when the imminence of the heaviest shower of the day obliged umpires David Shepherd and Steve Bucknor - whose excellent umpiring has contributed to a refreshingly amicable match - to bring the players off for bad light before Pakistan could begin their second innings. The last two hours of the day were lost as all but 15 minutes of the morning had been. Even drying equipment vastly more ef- ficient than it was no more than a few years ago can do nothing when the rain sets in at Headingley. It was less than England deserved for their best batting per- formance since the first Test of last winter against South Africa at Centurion Park. Mike Atherton and Alec Stewart saved the bacon at Trent Bridge against India in the face of an op- position total of 521, but in a style far less fluent and confi- dent than this. Stewart`s hundred on Saturday, reached at 3 pm after his ra- pid 52 on the previous evening, came from 168 balls. Mushtaq got him in the end, shaping to drive a 25th boundary, and neither he nor any of England`s top six read the googly from the leg-break with certainty. However, by keeping calm, waiting for the bad ball and despatching it with a timing wonderfully restored to him in the last three weeks or so, this feistiest of competitors completed his reha- bilitation as a Test batsman. He has played few more satisfying innings. Now 34, he has earned a new lease. Knight, who had been 51 on Saturday night, made his hundred - "fantastic, the kind of thing you dream of, an un- believable feeling," he said with infectious joy afterwards - from only 154 balls with a square-cut from Wasim Akram. It was his 15th four and his century was second only, in terms of times at the crease and balls received, to Ijaz Ahmed`s ca- valier hundred on the first day. It was, however, an in- nings of far more signi- ficance in the context of a team trying to find a combination which can turn back the tide of Aus- tralian success here next summer. Knight`s relish for Test cricket has been evident from the start of his international career last year and he showed now that those who doubted his technique need not have feared. He lifts the bat high, sees the ball early and hits it hard when the scoring opportunites come. Not a few of his drives were hit on the up, strokes which told of a quality and confidence recog- nised 10 years ago by Gordon Barker, his coach at Felsted School. The decision to restore Stewart as opener and bat Knight at six - made at the selection meeting 10 days ago - was handsomely vindicated, though the preference of the retiring chairman of selectors, Ray Illingworth, to play Stewart as the wicketkeeper-batsman at Jack Russell`s expense to allow England to retain Ian Salisbury might have worked too: who knows? The temptation will be there again before the Oval Test. Bowling sides out remains the apparently insoluble question, but the batting pieces have fallen into place one by one this sea- son. Graeme Hick is further away from the team than he was when this match started, all the more likely now to be handing out the drinks on Christmas Day at the par- ty already planned at his parents` home in Zimbabwe. You could not possibly claim that Knight is a better natural batsman than Hick, but the mental approach of the two is as dif- ferent as chalk from cheese. John Crawley`s self-esteem probably lies somewhere between the two. He was sent in one place higher than Knight, after Graham Thorpe had turned a leg-break to short-leg and batted with style and command from the outset. He was out after tea on Saturday, driving at an outswinger, having com- pleted a second successive Test fifty, though 12 frustrating months had separated the two. England had 15 minutes` batting before lunch yes- terday, ad- ding five runs in five overs. However, Knight dominated dur- ing a fine afternoon before a crowd of some 3,000, happily well-behaved after the further scenes of drunken oafishness which on Saturday had added to the question marks against Headingley`s long-term future as a Test venue. Russell was bowled off an inside edge when Wasim Akram finally claimed the second new ball, after 73 minutes of over- anxious batting, and Chris Lewis was bowled off bent front leg by a Mushtaq Ahmed googly. However, after Knight had driven Waqar Younis to mid-off, Dominic Cork batted with a cooler head than he has of late and even Alan Mullally managed a hook for six off a tired Akram. Mushtaq produced another exceptional display of skill and stamina on the way to his three for 142 off 55 overs, but Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis were frustrated by a faultlessly true pitch and a verdant outfield. They waited 123 overs before taking a second new ball - though the first, like the second, was changed be- cause it had lost shape - but the lethal reverse swing was sel- dom seen. Waqar, whose Tests wickets hitherto had come on average every 38 balls, a striking rate among serious Test bowlers bet- tered only by George Lohmann in a far different era, fi- nally added England`s eighth and ninth wickets to the one he had tak- en more than 24 hours earlier when he deceived Nasser Hussain with a slower ball. Only Andrew Caddick, though, succumbed to his famous full-length inswinger. He will bide his time and hope for drier weather at the Oval. ====>REPORT (Day 5, 12 August 1996) Second Test: Inzamam shuts out the brief glint of hope By Christopher Martin-Jenkins WHEN neither side have started their second innings by the start of the fifth day of a Test match on a good pitch, the result, barring miracles, can only be a draw, but England`s four fast bowlers worked hard to achieve the near-impossible at Leeds yesterday. A gem of an attacking innings by Inzamam-ul-Huq and dedicated de- fensive ones by Ijaz Ahmed and Asif Mujtaba made sure that Pak- istan would take their 1-0 lead in the series into the final game at the Oval next week, despite some anx- ious moments against Andrew Caddick in particular. It was a good-humoured end to a game that was never contentious on the field; only on the notorious western terrace. The fi- nal attendance for the five days of a match played in poorish weather was only 43,000, produc- ing gate receipts of #874,000 with which the Test and County Cricket Board are not unhappy. The small last-day crowd had sunny weather to en- joy, not to mention the welcome sight of an England leg-spinner taking a wicket, although not the one rejected when England left out their specialist on the first morning. Instead, the subtle art was displayed for seven overs by Michael Atherton, who claimed the second wicket of his Test career. Like the first, that of Dilip Vengsarkar, the victim was distinguished: no less a cricketer than Wasim Akram, Atherton`s friend and Lancashire team-mate, who will not be allowed to forget the moment when he played no stroke to a leg-break just outside his off stump and was given out leg be- fore. "I think he misread it as a googly," said Atherton with a broad grin. He thereby escaped the inglorious dis- tinction of becom- ing the bowler with the worst Test match aver- age yet: 294, by the Sri Lankan Roger Wijesuriya, remains the leader. Atherton bowled not only because his fast bowlers were tired, but because they had bowled their overs relatively slowly Atherton hardly deserves to overtake him and it is one of the pities of recent English cricket that the back pain which plagues him has prevented him from using his talent for wrist spin. He would never have been a world-beater, but he would have been a useful fifth or sixth bowler on days like these. This was his 108th first-class wicket, taken five years after the last time he bowled for England. Atherton bowled not only because his fast bowlers were tired, but because they had bowled their overs relatively slowly. By giving Graham Thorpe 10 overs too, once the chance of victory had gone, he made sure that there would be no fines for England this time. Nor was there the victory England needed. Atherton still feels he was right to put Pakistan in - having picked four bowlers, all fast, he clearly had no choice - but he implied that with hindsight a balanced attack might have been wiser. This was an unusual Test match for Headingley in recent times, the ball being dominated throughout by the bat, although this was the case, too, two years ago when South Africa almost overhauled England`s large, slow first-innings total. England`s failure to take their chance on the first morning this time is put into perspective, perhaps, by the fact that a better, but equally one-paced South African at- tack in 1994 was also unable to take advantage of conditions ap- parently suitable for seam and swing bowling. England fooled themselves into believing that the pitch was damper and greener than it was and I doubt if Pak- istan would have been bowled out cheaply even if the bowlers had found the right length more consistently. That said, perhaps not until the pitches are uncovered again for at least one of the major county competitions will English bowlers in- stinctively sense the length to bowl in different conditions. Covered pitches have produced one-dimensional cricket and cricketers. Against bowlers of the rare quality of Waqar Younis, Wasim and Mushtaq Ahmed runs are seldom so easily ac- quired as they were on this flawless pitch Four-day cricket by itself has not, as had been hoped, re- stored the art of spin. The only wrist spinner of anywhere near Test class was left out of the England 13 here and the soft pitches on which finger spinners once thrived and learned their art are things of the past. Even England`s batting perfor- mance here, heartening as it was, may have flattered them. Against bowlers of the rare quality of Waqar Younis, Wasim and Mushtaq Ahmed runs are seldom so easily acquired as they were on this flawless pitch. Saeed Anwar began with some beautiful strokes yes- terday but Shadab Kabir was out to a top-edged hook and Saeed caught behind off a ball which left him in the first over of a well-directed nine-over morning spell by Dominic Cork. Had Inzamam been given out lbw to Cork, walking across his stumps to clip a straight ball to leg, there might have been a genuine crisis, but he had made 30 not out by lunch in company with a vigilant Ijaz and he began the afternoon with an array of lordly strokes. Caddick kept England`s hopes alive with a lively afternoon spell from the Kirkstall Lane End. Inzamam carved a short lifter to third man and Salim Malik, who no longer seems to enjoy any- thing bouncy, pushed a catch to mid-wicket off a ball which stopped. Had Nasser Hussain caught Ijaz for 32 when he cut Chris Lewis hard to backward point with the Pakistan lead only 89, Eng- land might still have had a chance, but Mujtaba batted calmly again for long enough for his running mix-up with Ijaz to be academic. Ijaz had batted for just over four hours when Cad- dick had him caught behind off a glove as he ducked at a bumper which failed to bump. It was a welcome victim for Jack Russell, who became during this game only the fourth England wicketkeeper to pass 150 victims, a mere 11 of them stumped, although he is at his best up to the wicket. He had an untidy match and batted without confidence but his captain made it clear that he does not support the idea of restoring the gloves to Alec Stewart, the man of the match here, even in an at- tempt to bal- ance the side for the final Test. If England are to retrieve the series they will have to play at least one spinner - logically it should be Ian Salisbury - with an all-rounder at six. Darren Gough`s ability to swing the ball at pace must again bring him into conten- tion. Source :: Electronic Telegraph (http://www.telegraph.co.uk) Contributed by Ravi (sista@*.latech.edu)