England have achieved some remarkable things under the direction of Nasser Hussain as captain and the coach Duncan Fletcher. But nothing thus far can compare to the scenes, played out in almost total darkness here yesterday evening that brought England's first Test victory in Pakistan since 1961, when they won the initial encounter in this country between the sides. In taking the series they also inflicted on Pakistan their first defeat in the National stadium.
After four days of pottering along, the match took off in its final act. Having bowled Pakistan out for 158 in their second innings, England needed 176 from 44 overs to win, a task that sounded simpler than it was with the slow turning pitch hampering strokeplay, no restrictions on field placings or wide bowling, and, crucially, no application of a law introduced in October to prevent the deliberate slowing down of the game.
Hussain and his side knew that to clinch the series they would have to bat in the gathering gloom with Waqar Younis, still one of the world's fastest bowlers, hurtling at them.
The victory was sealed by Graham Thorpe, a player whose career has been well and truly resurrected after almost a year out of the game. The left-hander made an unbeaten 64, with miraculous, not to say calm and calculating, batting in the circumstances.
It was half an hour since the sun had sunk below the level of the stands and the red aircraft warning lights on top of the floodlight pylons were blinking when he struck Saqlain Mushtaq's offspin successively to the third-man boundary, through extra cover for another four and then, it is believed (genuinely, it was too dark to tell) for two runs somewhere behind the Pakistan wicketkeeper and captain Moin Khan to round things off.
Thorpe batted for almost two hours and hit five fours in a ruthless, confident run-gathering exercise under extreme pressure.
Pakistan ensured that there were as few overs as possible bowled while the light was at its best. To this end, Moin was shameless, allowing just 11 overs in the first hour of the England chase and an average of 12 an hour overall when 15 is the required standard.
There was fidgetting with field placings, over-attention to detail and unwarranted time spent during and between overs. In one passage of play, Saeed Anwar spent entire overs strolling from short fine leg for the right-handed Graeme Hick to deep midwicket on the other side of the ground for the lefthanded Thorpe as they rotated the strike. Saqlain's overs were taking up to seven minutes.
"We thought the game would literally come down to a matter of minutes," said Hussain. "Fortunately we were in a no-lose situation because we knew that with the bad light if we got into trouble we could just walk off so we could go for it all the way. Even at the end, if the umpires had let us we would have stayed on in pitch black."
The crucial partnership came from Thorpe and Hick, the latter out of form and almost out of favour but sent in on a whim by Hussain after Mike Atherton, Marcus Trescothick and Alec Stewart had been dismissed inside the first 17 overs.
At first the priority was to ensure that the remote possibility of losing was eliminated but later, clever running between the wickets sent Pakistan ragged. Hick hit just two boundaries, one an uncharacteristic reverse sweep, during his innings of 40 which was ended when Moin brought back Waqar. The pair had added 91 for the fourth wicket taking England to the verge and fittingly allowing Hussain to be there in the moment of triumph.
Earlier, Hussain had largely entrusted his best bowlers Ashley Giles, Craig White and Darren Gough with the task of trying to set up a chance of victory and they responded superbly taking the last seven wickets for 87 runs by mid-afternoon and the last six for 30 in 17 overs. The glory may have gone to Thorpe but no one should forget the spear carriers who made it possible.
