Cricket/ Pakistan v England: Pakistan zindabad! No one who has watched Inzamam-ul-Haq and his exuberant young side over the past month can begrudge them their triumph.
Consistently they have outplayed England, batting according to the demands of the situation and, led by the dynamic Shoaib Akhtar, who promised a new leaf and delivered, showed the sort of wit with the ball that was beyond England's wholehearted but essentially two-dimensional bash-it-in attack.
"We have to learn from this," said England's captain, Michael Vaughan, after his side had imploded so violently after lunch on Saturday that perhaps the food should have been sent for analysis.
And so they must - patience, discretion, technique, strategy - and absorb the lessons pretty fast, too, before they face India's batsmen and spinners on similar surfaces in the spring.
This has not been the unmitigated disaster the result might suggest, although there is a worrying aspect to the way England failed to nail down the first Test in Multan, and then again in the third to extricate themselves in the sort of conditions that should have made a draw a cinch.
Over the past year or so they have been proud, and rightly so, of the manner in which they have overturned adversity to their advantage and come out on top in situations that once might have been considered beyond resurrection. But this has always been offset, from the periphery anyway, by a wish like that of a parent with a slightly delinquent child, that just occasionally they played without getting into a scrape in the first place.
The pivotal point of this series came early. Having lost the toss in Multan, Vaughan's pacemen responded so brilliantly that Pakistan were dismissed for a mere 274. In reply England, at one point late on the second day, reached 251 for two. Had they transformed that base into the sort of total that allowed them to dictate the terms there on in, they would almost certainly have won, possibly by an innings. Their eventual lead of 144 was betwixt and between. That they still should have chased a small total successfully is incidental: defeat there should never have been an issue.
Contrast that with Lahore, where England, batting first, failed to take advantage and made just 288. Pakistan, in reply, variously were 12 for two, 60 for three and 247 for five. They eventually managed 636 for eight declared.
In the aftermath of the defeat, England's first in seven series since they lost to Sri Lanka in the most inhospitable conditions of them all, Duncan Fletcher, the England coach, remains a realist at heart but still deeply protective towards his players.
Nevertheless, he was as critical as he felt he could be of the lack of patience and discipline shown by batsmen who knew they had to adapt to conditions and circumstance but clearly were unable to set their minds to bat in the manner of Inzamam or Mohammad Yousuf. The aggression of the summer needed to be replaced by something altogether more cerebral.
All, no doubt, will be the wiser in three months when they leave for India. They better had, as Fletcher says.
* Guardian Service
Scoreboard
Overnight: Pakistan 636-8 dec (Mohammad Yousuf 223, Kamran Akmal 154, Inzamam-ul-Haq 97); England 288 (P Collingwood 96, M Vaughan 58, M Trescothick 50) and 121-2 (I Bell 60 no).
England Second Innings:
I R Bell lbw b Akhtar92
P Collingwood c H Raza b Kaneri80
K Pietersen c H Raza b Kaneri1
A Flintoff b Kaneria0
G Jones lbw b Akhtar5
S Udal c Salman Butt b Sami25
L Plunkett lbw b Akhtar0
M Hoggard b Kaneria0
S Harmison not out0
Extras (b13 lb9 w1 nb9) 32
----
Total (77.1 overs) ... 248
Fall of wickets: 1-0, 2-30, 3-205, 4-212, 5-212, 6-212, 7-227, 8-227, 9-248.
Bowling: Shoaib Akhtar 19-3-71-5; Naved-ul-Hasan 16-3-55-0; Mohammad Sami 16-4-39-1; Shoaib Malik 4-2-9-0; Danish Kaneria 22.1-8-52-4.
* Pakistan beat England by an innings and 100 runs.
