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World Cup: England gain respect after forcing best from Pakistan

England's reward for being both the least successful and the least impressive of the four qualifiers is a quarter-final against Sri Lanka in Faisalabad on Saturday after Group B in the World Cup finally sorted itself out yesterday.

Pakistan's prize for winning their third match out of four is a journey to India, which politicians have prevented them from making for the last seven years and which they would have preferred to avoid if possible.

Any temptation to relax and allow England the chance to travel to India instead was firmly resisted, a matter which had never been in doubt despite a newspaper report to the contrary in which their manager, Intikhab Alam, was liberally misquoted.

National pride and cricketing common sense demanded instead that Pakistan should play to their potential and, to the un- inhibited delight of 32,000 excited but disciplined spectators at the National Stadium in Karachi, they overcame even an improved England performance to defeat them with 14 balls and seven wickets in hand.

It was England's eighth successive defeat against Test-class opposition in one-day internationals since January and though it may be for only one more match, The Management will probably ask for a replacement batsman to be sent out to Pakistan today, because of another hamstring injury to Neil Fairbrother.

This is a morning on which to praise Pakistan

If they do, the choice ought to be Nasser Hussain or Alan Wells, one of whom should probably have been here in the first place. They may feel obliged to call on Mark Ramprakash again, but there is a precedent for going outside the original 18 names submitted to Pilcom, the organising committee, Australia having chosen Jason Gillespie, the young South Australian who was not on their original list, for Craig McDermott.

This, meanwhile, is a morning on which to praise Pakistan, not to bury England who at least made a respectable total yesterday and who could yet win three games and the World Cup.

Pakistan themselves achieved that sort of miraculous bouleversement four years ago, but it is much more likely that they will be reaching a second successive final than England.

Confidence and morale are high in Pakistan now, on the field and off it. The administrative arrangements for an important match in what has so recently been such a volatile city were faultless and in Javed Miandad's last big game on his native ground it was highly appropriate that he should have been batting at the other end when Inzamam-ul-Haq produced the last of several brutal straight drives to complete Pakistan's smooth progress towards a target of 250.

England's total, after winning the toss on a bare and flawless pitch of baked grey clay was, in captain Wasim Akram's estimation, at least 20 runs short of setting his batsmen a really serious challenge.

It was Smith who took the sword to the new white ball

At 134 for no wicket halfway through their overs, England had been admirably placed to make something close to 300, but they fell away against a combination no more deadly than Aamir Sohail, the man of the match, and Salim Malik. Had it not been for another cool and classy innings by Graham Thorpe, all the good work by the latest opening combination of Mike Atherton and Robin Smith might have gone to waste.

The fact remains that nine wickets fell for 102 once Smith, who batted with a runner for the last 20 runs of his partnership because of cramp and later left the field after only four overs, had driven Salim to long-off in the 29th over.

For that the major credit was due to Mushtaq Ahmed and Waqar Younis. Both had been made uncomfortably aware in their opening spells of how little margin there was for error on a pitch so slow and easy that a Test match might have been played here for 10 days without a result.

It was Smith who took the sword to the new white ball, Atherton to the leg-breaks and googlies of Mushtaq; the latter in a deliberate attempt to knock him off his length at once. Both the openers needed runs for their personal well-being, quite apart from the needs of the side. Smith, for reasons mainly but not entirely of injury, was playing his first match of the tournament and there was every bit as good a case for his doing so at number five, in lieu of the disappointing Fairbrother, allowing Alec Stewart to open with Atherton.

In the event Stewart at his most fluent would not have hit the ball so hard as Smith, who pulled Waqar for six in the fourth over and twice square-cut Wasim Akram for four in the ninth, forcing Wasim round the wicket with an illogical six-three offside field. Thereafter the initiative was with the batsmen, more obviously so still when Atherton twice hit bold strokes over the infield in taking nine off Mushtaq's first over.

Despite Thorpe's invention and aggressive running, the eventual 249 was clearly insufficient

Three quick wickets changed the game. No sooner had Smith holed out than Graeme Hick, who had an unfortunate game, moved down the pitch to drive, missed and was stumped. In Sohail's next over of undemanding left-arm spin, Atherton tried to cut a ball which came in with the arm and also missed.

The slide was accelerated by Mushtaq who, having been struck for 39 off five overs in his first spell, responded with three for 14 in his second. Fairbrother clipped him to midwicket, Russell pushed back a return catch and Reeve was utterly defeated by the googly.

Despite Thorpe's invention and aggressive running, the eventual 249 was clearly insufficient. Sohail flailed the ball through the off-side with a squash player's wristy strength and his cultured left- handed partner, Saeed Anwar, introduced himself to England with panache after 85 internationals against other attacks in which he has already made eight hundreds, as many as Miandad in 231.

Richard Illingworth broke their fluent stand at 81 in the 16th over when Sohail hit him to mid-on and though Ijaz Ahmed picked up runs with equal facility there was a short period when Illingworth and Reeve managed to slow the rate sufficiently to keep everyone guessing as to the result.

Two expensive overs by Hick broke that spell and in the 12 overs between the dismissals of Anwar and Ijaz -both caught behind driving at Cork - Pakistan added 75. There was no doubt after that who would be going where.

Man of the match: Aamir Sohail