England lost another tight finish to lose a record eighth successive one day match after a highly-skilled Pakistan side held their nerve to claim adramatic two-run victory at Lord's.
Having pushed world champions Australia to within three runs of victory on Sunday, England once again lost out in a dramatic finale with SaqlainMushtaq showing his expertise by claiming the final wicket of Andrew Caddick from the last delivery of the match.
Saqlain's brilliant contribution capped an eventful final over, which England began needing nine runs for victory with two wickets in hand.
It included two wides, an amazing catch in the deep and four members of the Pakistan side once again confronting umpire Ken Palmer.
But the end result was the same as the previous seven matches for England - another defeat to underline the major gulf in know-how andexperience they are going to have to breach if they are to become World Cup challengers in two years' time.
England's cause had seemed lost after losing five wickets in six overs to leave them needing a further 27 from the remaining three overs asCaddick walked out to the crease to join centurion Marcus Trescothick.
They began chiselling down Pakistan's advantage until they reached that final, dramatic over from Saqlain with Trescothick needing just four runsto overtake Viv Richards' 138 against England in 1975 and score the highest ever one-day innings at Lord's.
He clipped a two off his legs from the first delivery and England's hopes of victory were further helped by Saqlain straying down leg-side for a wideoff the next.
Trescothick attempted to take advantage of the following delivery by attempting a slog-sweep which flew high in the air towards mid-wicket withboth Shahid Afridi and Shoaib Malik converging on a possible catch.
Afridi arrived first and held it superbly despite colliding with Shoaib to end Trescothick's brilliant 142-ball innings of 137, which included three sixesand 11 other boundaries, just one short of equalling Sir Viv's outstanding performance.
Caddick added a further single before the major flashpoint when Palmer, involved in a major row with Pakistan fast bowler Aquib Javed at OldTrafford in 1992 after warning him for intimidatory bowling, called yet another wide and prompted captain Waqar Younis, wicketkeeper Rashid Latifand Saqlain to remonstrate forcibly.
Instead of losing his concentration for the final two deliveries, however, Saqlain delivered brilliantly with a dot ball yorker off the next ball beforehaving Caddick stumped by Rashid off the last to complete Pakistan's stunning triumph.
PA