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Dawn England beat Pakistan 'A'
Our Sports Reporter - 3 April 1999

LAHORE, April 3: An unbeaten 92 by Graham Thorpe and a fine half-century by opener Nick Knight, helped England beat Pakistan A by four wickets in the first day/night practice match at the Gaddafi stadium on Saturday.

The tourists achieved the modest victory target of 220 with 14 balls and four wickets to spare. Thorpe's winning was punctuated with seven boundaries from 131 balls.

Only Test pacer Kabir Khan bowl well for Pakistan 'A' on a batting pitch. He took three for 34.

Thorpe added 95 runs for the third wicket in 119 balls with Knight whose 71-ball 51 ended when he was stumped off Mushtaq Ahmad. Earlier, Pakistan ``A'' side plodded to 219 all out inthe afternoon session, thanks to a fourth wicket partnership of 85 between Akhtar Sarfaraz and Hasan Raza.

Akhtar Sarfaraz scored a quick 63 from 70 balls. Besides hitting six fluent boundaries, Akhtar hit Croft for the first six of the innings over mid-wicket boundary. He was the fourth batsman out.

Hasan Raza hit the second six of the Pakistan ``A'' innings when he drove spinner Robert Croft over his head. However, Croft had his revenge at the total of 173 when he had him caught at long on by Adam Hollioake as the batsman tried to loft his flighted delivery. Hasan scored a sensible 42 studded with four boundaries and the six. Hasan faced 52 balls and stayed at the crease for 84 minutes.

Darren Gough and Andrew Flintoff were the most successful England bowlers as both claimed three wickets, each, conceding 41 and 19 runs, respectively. Gough hit the first blow when Fairbrother brilliantly caught opener Mohammad Naveed (6) off his bowling at the total of 26. Gough returned to clean bowl Kabir Khan (2) and lastman Shabbir Ahmad (1) to mop up the Pakistan ``A'' innings in the last over.

Andrew Flintoff destroyed the middle-order batting with his effective and economical bowling. Besides claiming Akhtar's wicket, Flintoff also had wicket-keeper Humayun Farhat (6) and skipper Waqar Younis.

Opener Wajahatullah Wasti (24 on 30 balls with five fours), Taufeeq Umar (19 on 59 balls) and Sajid Shah (26 not out with three fours on 29 balls) made other useful contributions for Pakistan ``A'' side.


Source: Dawn
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