Theirs was no disgrace. Waqar was incredible, exploding out of his slinging action after a long sprint to the crease and bowling with near scientific accuracy at extreme pace - one delivery was above 90mph - and with late, dipping swing into the right-handed batsmen. It was compulsive viewing, as it was again after tea yesterday, and so often is when the variously gifted Pakistan team are on song.
His success was all the more galling because England had barely swung the ball and are miffed about it. They have three bowlers, Simon Brown, Mark Ealham and Cork, who virtually always swing the ball and one, Alan Mul- lally, who is more than able. Cork, though not being at a point of despair, is concerned about this. Brown has had his Test match debut tainted by it and Ealham, well, with typical modesty he does his best but he does not approve.
An eminent former England cricketer said yesterday that it was the fault of the bowlers but this is not so, it is the ball. Two types of ball are used in English cricket, the Dukes and the Reader. Generally the Dukes has a more prominent seam and swings, given the right conditions, most of the time - if the bowler is up to it.
The Reader tends not to swing until it has aged, by as much as 50 overs on occasions, when one side is suitably roughened and/or dry and the other is kept smooth or damp, and then when it does so it is by the method known as reverse swing.
Shane Warne was not happy with his grip on the seam and the red dye was coming off the ball, turning it white.
Ridiculously, the Test match captains are given the choice of ball and if they fail to agree they toss a coin for selection. When England play abroad they play with what they are given, normally the Australian-made Kookaburra ball, which does not suit them, but they do not grumble. When Australia were in England in 1993 they agreed to switch from the Reader to the Dukes because Shane Warne was not happy with his grip on the seam and the red dye was coming off the ball, turning it white.
Wasim won the toss before this match and wisely chose the Reader as it negated England's ability to get movement off the pitch by hitting the larger seam and movement in the air by swinging the Dukes. Two of Wasim's key bowlers are much faster than England's, do not need seam movement to be at their most dangerous and love to reverse-swing the old ball. His third key bowler, Mushtaq Ahmed, could spin an orange. These are special gifts and should be applauded as such.
Few county teams, if any, are still using the Reader ball for these reasons yet county bowlers representing England are obliged to do so. The selectors may have missed a trick here. The choice of Brown in place of the injured Chris Lewis was admirable enough because Brown has more wickets than anyone this season and because the best opening batsmen think Brown the best opening swing bowler. But the selectors knew about the ball the day before they were committed to announce their team and should perhaps have turned to Darren Gough, who is the nearest thing to Waqar Younis and is also in form. Gough is not a seam bowler, in the old-fashioned sense, he is a sharp and skiddy bowler with variations of pace and a good inswinging yorker that comes with the reverse method, which he learnt, ironically, by studying Waqar.
Both the Dukes and Reader companies must conform to the same British Standard specifications in the manufacturing of their product, yet their product is different. Apart from the size of the seam, the strength of the seam is an issue too. There is a tendency for the Reader seam to disintegrate quicker than the Dukes - there have been five changes of ball in the match al- ready - though when both balls are stitched together by nine strands of the same thread which are ready twisted for both com- panies, i t is difficult to understand why.
Then there is the leather, which comes from the same tannery but, say the players, feels different in the hand and responds differently to polishing. The lacquer on the Reader leather takes longer to disperse but conversly, the dye on the leather disappears more quickly. Reader do their own dyeing, Dukes receive their leather already dyed.
Dukes changed from the traditional centre of cork and wool worsted to a cork and polyurethane layered centre some years ago.
Perhaps the most crucial difference is in the core of the ball, which is one area in the manufacturing process not controlled by standard specification. Dukes changed from the traditional centre of cork and wool worsted to a cork and polyurethane layered centre some years ago.
Reader use the same materials but in another way - a Swiss roll effect from which they cut out a sphere. This brings a polyurethane rod to the centre of the core. Neither process is proven right nor wrong. In fact, until the Test and County Cricket Board instructed a reduction in the prominence of the seam in the early Nineties the Reader ball was considered harder wearing and a better choice.
That has changed and professional bowlers suspect that the seam acts as a rudder for swing, which is why most choose the Dukes, which also has a comfortable disc-like feel as it is made with gently sloping shoulders away from the seam. The Reader is more rounded, probably an illusion created by the flatter seam.
There are further theories as to why a cricket ball does not swing. Abrasive pitches made from modern loam is one and heavy 3lb bats which damage 5.5oz of handmade ball another. The most offbeat is an idea that polishing a natural material on today's manmade polyester trousers will not be successful.
Whatever, swing, like spin, is essential for cricket because it encourages bowlers to pitch up and aim at the stumps and encourages batsmen to play strokes from the front foot. The game is invariably at its best when it is played underneath the eyes of the batsmen and it is imperative to ensure the provision of a ball which makes for equal balance between bowler and batsman. Granting an open market for manufacturers is not necessarily the way to do it.