Pakistan Beat England By 10 Wickets At Dubai

Pakistan trounced England by 10 wickets in the first of three Test matches at Dubai to take a 1-0 lead in the series.

The hosts needed to score 15 to win the game which they did on the third day without the loss of any wickets to take home the game. This was after the English side was bowled out for the second time in the match for a sub-200 total.

After conceding a lead of 146 runs in the first innings, one would have expected England to come back strongly in the second innings. However, the English side capitulated for the second time in the match and were bowled out for a mere 160 to the combination of pace and spin, allowing the home team to knock off the needed runs with ease.

It was a strangely subdued second innings performance from England as they not only lost wickets at the top but also failed to get too many runs. Andrew Strauss was unlucky to be given out, caught behind when nothing seemed to register on the Hot-Spot but the rest of them were dismissed to plain poor strokes.

Alastair Cook was strangulated into playing down the leg-side, Kevin Pietersen pulled a short one to deep square-leg and Ian Bell was trapped in front by a Saeed Ajmal doosra.

From 35/4, Jonathon Trott and Eoin Morgan rescued the side a little but there wasn’t much to go with. Morgan edged Abdur Rehman behind the stumps while Trott and Matt Prior left at the same score of 87.

Some lusty hitting from Stuart Broad and Graeme Swann brought the side beyond the score of 146 needed to make Pakistan bat again but they could only get to 160. Ajmal managed to pick up three wickets to go with his seven in the first innings and ended with 10 in the match. He was awarded the man-of-the-match award.

The second Test begins from January 25.